Was she about to wed herself to crime?
She remembered the perfect justness, the unwavering charity of her father, and in those softened moments she felt assured he would not have condemned him without good cause.

Why, oh, why had she thus committed herself?
where was she to turn for succour?
where look for aid to guard her from the fate she had woven for herself?
Where, in her childish faults, had her mother taught her to seek for assistance and forgiveness?
Dare she address her Maker, the God whom, in those months of infatuated blindness, she had deserted; Him, whom her deception towards her parents had offended, for she had trampled on His holy laws, she had honoured them not?
The hour of seven chimed; three hours more, and her fate was irrevocably sealed--the God of her youth profaned; for could she ever address Him again when the wife of Alphingham?
from whose lips no word of religion ever came, whose most simple action had lately evinced contempt for its forms and restrictions.

The beloved guardians of her infant years, the tender friends of her youth insulted, lowered by her conduct in the estimation of the world, liable to reproach; their very devotion for so many years to their children condemned, ridiculed.

An inseparable bar placed between her and the hand-in-hand companions of her youth; never again should she kneel with them around their parents, and with them share the fond impressive blessing.

Oakwood and its attendant innocence and joys, had they passed away for ever?
She thought on the anguish that had been her mother's, when in her childhood she had sinned, and what was she now about to inflict?
She saw her bowed down in the depth of misery; she heard her agonized prayer for mercy on her child.
"Saviour of my mother, for her sake, have mercy on her unworthy child! oh, save me from myself, restore me to my mother!" and sinking on her knees, the wretched girl buried her face in her hands, and minutes, which to her appeared like hours, rolled on in that wild burst of repentant and remorseful agony..