It was by the mightiest effort only that she kept down the almost overmastering impulse which prompted her to cast herself down at the old man’s feet, and confess to him what she had done, and so implore his pardon and his blessing.
Had she done so, most happy it had been for her unhappy self; more happy yet for one more miserable yet, that should be!
Had she done so, she had crowned the old man’s last days with a halo of happiness that had lighted him down the steps to the dusky grave rejoicing—she had secured to herself, and to him whom she had taken for better or for worse, innocence and security and self-respect and virtue, which _are_ happiness!
She did it not; and she repented not _then_—for when she told Jasper how nearly she had confessed all, his brow grew as dark as night, and he put her from him, exclaiming with an oath, that had she done so, he had never loved her more; but did she not repent thereafter?
It was late when Jasper returned, and he was, to all outward observers, sad and thoughtful; but Theresa could read something in his countenance, which told _her_ that he had derived some secret satisfaction from his visit.
In a word, the danger, apprehension of which had so prompted Jasper’s charity, and quickened his zeal in well-doing—the danger, that the old clergyman should divulge _in extremis_ the duty which had led him to the church at an hour so untimely, was at an end forever. He was dead, and had never spoken since the accident, which had proved fatal to his decrepit frame and broken constitution.
Moreover, to make all secure, he had seen the rascal sexton, and secured him forever, by promising him an annuity so long as the secret should be kept; while craftier and older in iniquity than he, and suspecting—might it not be foreseeing—deeper iniquity to follow, the villain, who now alone, with the suborned witnesses, knew what had passed, stole into the chancel, and cut out from the parish register the leaf which contained the record of that unhappy marriage.
It is marvellous how at times all things appear to work prosperously for the success of guilt, the destruction of innocence; but, of a truth, the end of these things is not here.
It so fell out that the record of Theresa Allan’s union with Jasper St. Aubyn was the first entry on a fresh leaf of the register. One skillful cut of a sharp knife removed that leaf, so as to defy the closest scrutiny; had one other name been inscribed thereon, before hers, she had been saved.