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The afternoon of the day upon which the examination of
Magdalen Groves before the magistrates had taken place, was
gloomy and threatening. No snow had yet fallen since the
commencement of the winter, but there were now indications
of a storm.

The unfortunate and deserted woman accompanied Esther,
with whom as well as with Maudsley, it will be recollected, she
had had previous but mysterious interviews, to her own residence.
Her mind seemed, however, in an apathetic condition,
as if the severity of the blows, which had been inflicted upon
her, had left her almost insensible. Her replies to the kind
words spoken to her by Esther, Walter Ludlow, and Maudsley
were brief and unsatisfactory. She appeared humble and grateful,
but incommunicative and preoccupied. In answer to various
suggestions, she constantly repeated that she would seek out her
cousin, as she continued to call Sir Christopher Gardiner.

It was naturally difficult for persons, so differently situated
with regard to that adventurer, to hold any very satisfactory
communion together, but Maudsley was determined that his
victim should be enlightened as to his true character and his
perfidy. Of his former adventures and crimes she had some
knowledge, but they had made no impression upon her. She
had, however, more than suspected the nature of his feelings
towards Esther, and had been nearly driven to madness in consequence;
but the knight, with his usual crafty eloquence, had
been enabled at last to lull her jealousy to sleep, and during

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their absence from Massachusetts, there had, of course, been
nothing to awaken it again.

Maudsley, however, convinced that it was for the eventual
repose of the deceived and deserted woman to be enlightened at
last upon these topics, now, as briefly and tenderly as he could,
gave her the true history of the previous day's adventure at
Merry-Mount, of which she had been in profound ignorance,
and informed her, moreover, of the proposal which Gardiner had
made to him in a whisper, at their memorable meeting upon
the beach at Shawmut.

The unfortunate woman received these tidings with a frozen
stare, as if the poniard which thus struck her to the heart
was so keen, that it destroyed her without inflicting a
positive pang. She made no reply. Her eye seemed hot and
tearless; she trembled slightly, but uttered not a syllable of
complaint or reproach. The slave of love, she who had sacrificed
all for love, who had pardoned treachery, coldness, cruelty,
while she still believed herself the object of love, now saw herself,
beyond all possibility of doubt, both despised and hated.

At her urgent entreaty, she was left to herself, for a little
while. The night had already set in. The wind howled dismally
through the leafless groves which surrounded the Ludlows'
cottage. The indications of the afternoon had not been
deceptive, and a driving, blinding, snow-storm combined with
the raging wind and the benumbing cold, to make a fearful
night. It seemed impossible that any living soul would willingly
brave the terrors of such a tempest.

At about ten o'clock Esther looked into the room where Magdalen
was still sitting, or rather crouching in the same attitude
in which she had been left. As she, however, manifested considerable
repugnance to any communication at present, and
seemed still in a stunned and almost a lethargic state, Esther
thought that it was useless to force upon her common-place

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consolation which was thus decidedly rejected. Earnestly imploring
her, however, to address herself to God for support and
consolation, and gently advising her to seek repose, if not sleep,
as soon as possible, she withdrew for the night.

About an hour afterwards, Magdalen, who had still remained
motionless, in her solitary position near the hearth, where huge
burning logs threw a fitful glare about the rude apartment,
suddenly started to her feet, as if the whole truth had suddenly,
and for the first time, glared upon her, with a horrible and
unquenchable light.

“I will seek the traitor,” said she to herself, in a low, hoarse
voice. Without another word, and with noiseless steps, she went
from the room, opened the outer door, and then glided forth,
like a ghost, into the midnight storm. The snow, whirling thick
and fast before the hurricane, had already, like a white deluge,
changed the face of the wilderness. She moved on without a
sensation of fear, for she found something congenial in that
opaque and boundless gloom, while the wintry cold and the driving
snow felt grateful to her burning brain. For many minutes
she moved along, abandoning herself as it were to the fierce
delight of mingling with an elemental tempest, as wild and
desolate as that which was sweeping her soul. At last the
excitement of her brain gradually began to yield before the
benumbing effects of the cold, and the difficulty of making
her way through the heavy drifts and the constantly increasing
storm. How long and how far she had wandered, she knew
not; but at last the fury of her emotions seemed to have abated,
a delicious calm came over her, she sank upon the ground,
breathed a prayer of forgiveness for herself for her enemies,
and so fell asleep for ever. The driving hurricane wrapped
her as she slept in an icy winding sheet, and the wintry wind
sounded her requiem in the tossing pine branches.