Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/28

18 round, and seeing her aunt's eye fixed upon her, rather too scrutinizingly, as she probably thought, she started up and continued,—"to which end I'll give you a song—Shall I, aunt? shall I, Mrs. Huntingdon? shall I, ladies and gentlemen—all?—Very well, I'll do my best to amuse you."

She and Lord Lowborough occupied the apartments next to mine. I know not how she passed the night, but I lay awake the greater part of it listening to his heavy step pacing monotonously up and down his dressing-room, which was nearest my chamber. Once I heard him pause and throw something out of the window, with a passionate ejaculation; and in the morning, after they were gone, a keen-bladed clasp-knife was found on the grass-plot below; a razor, likewise was snapped in two and thrust deep into the cinders of the grate, but partially corroded by the decaying embers. So strong had been the temptation to end his miserable life, so determined his resolution to resist it.