ABSTRACT
‘A Moment’s consideration,’ continued Mrs. Glenmorris, ‘a moment’s consideration opened to me the consequence of this request. He had been deceived, though I knew not by whom, as to the motives of my having quitted the abbey, and had heard of the wound Macarden had received, though from what quarter these misrepresentations came I had no means of guessing. It was easy to foresee the probable consequences of revealing the iniquity of Kilbrodie and his mother; yet I was well aware that Glenmorris had so great an abhorrence of falsehood, which he always disdained to use in the most apparently inconsequential matters, even such as related to the mere forms of the world; I knew myself so awkward at any dissimulation, and indeed had so little reason to palliate the conduct of either the mother or the son, that I should not have hesitated a moment, but for the fear I had that the impetuous spirit of Glenmorris might urge him to endanger his personal safety, by calling Kilbrodie to an account; this, however, must be remote; I might find means to detach him from any such indulgence of his vengeance – and it was better to hazard nothing in an affair on which the sole happiness of my future life depended, for it was now evident to me that doubts of my conduct had empoisoned the delight with which my beloved husband, after so long and cruel a separation, had found me once more restored to him; yet that he could doubt was, I own, a most bitter conviction; so bitter, that, added to the cruel remembrance of all I had suffered, the death of my child, undoubtedly produced by terror I was purposely exposed to, and the sad event of which I had been the occasion in the person of Macarden, I seemed deprived for a time of the power of relating all that had befallen me, so heavy was the crowd of cruel recollections pressing at once upon me.
