Can a few moments of maudlin sentimentality, a vague yearning for something brighter and better, a brief impulse towards honesty, inspired by a woman's innocent eyes--can so little virtue in the present atone for so much guilt in the past?
Alas! I fear not.
I had one last brief _tete-a-tete_ with my dear girl while I took the tracing from the old Bible.

She sat watching me, and distracting me more or less while I worked; and despite the shadow of doubt that has fallen upon me, I could not be otherwise than happy in her sweet company.
When I came to the record of Susan Meynell's death, my Charlotte's manner changed all at once from her accustomed joyousness to a pensive gravity.
"I was very sorry you spoke of Susan Meynell to uncle Joseph," she said, thoughtfully.
"But why sorry, my dear ?" I had some vague notion as to the cause of this sorrow; but the instincts of the chase impelled me to press the subject.

Was I not bound to know every secret in the lives of Matthew Haygarth's descendants?
"There is a very sad story connected with my aunt Susan--she was my great-aunt, you know," said Charlotte, with a grave earnest face.

"She went away from home, and there was great sorrow.

I cannot talk of the story, even to you, Valentine, for there seems something sacred in these painful family secrets.