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 irremediable, where, while the denunciation would be unavailing, the denunciator must be undone.

Appeased thus for the moment, though not satisfied in her scruples, she walked on towards the dwelling; but, seeing that it was still shut up, she seated herself upon the stump of a large tree, where deaf, from mental occupation, to the wild melody of innumerable surrounding singing birds, she shudderingly, and without intermission, bathed her bloody hand in the dew.

Rest, however, to her person, served but to quicken the energy of her faculties; and the less her fears, the more her judgment prevailed. Her reasoning, upon examination, she found to be plausible but fallacious. The evil already committed, it was, indeed, too late to obviate; but if the wretched hut, from which she had just escaped, were the receptacle of nocturnal culprits, or of their victims, there might not be a moment to lose to prevent some new and horrible catastrophe.