I am as one on the brink of a precipice, who beholds the dreadful gulf before him, into which another step must plunge him, yet is too giddy to retreat, and must needs fall over.

Pity me, kind Heaven! I am utterly helpless without thy aid." While the unhappy lady thus unavailingly deplored the sad position in which her own misconduct had placed her, and from which she felt wholly incapable of extricating herself; while in this wretched frame of mind, she awaited her lover's return,--with, as we have shown, some remains of good struggling with the evil in her bosom,--we will cast a hasty glance round the chamber in which she sat.

And we are prompted to do this, not because it merits particular description, but because it was the room referred to by Lady Lake as the scene of the confession she had forged.
The apartment, then, was spacious and handsomely furnished in the heavy taste of the period, with but little to distinguish it from other rooms visited by us in the course of this story.

Like most of them, it had a gloomy air, caused by the dark hue of its oaken panels, and the heavy folds of its antiquated and faded tapestry.

The latter was chiefly hung against the lower end of the chamber, and served as a screen to one of the doors.