The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

190 JANE TALBOT.
seen to come out. His detention, therefore, candour
would ascribe to the storm; but this letter, with such a
conclusion as was too easily made, might fix a construction on it that no time could remove and innocence could
never confute.
I had not resolved in what way I should employ this
letter, as I had eked it out, before Mr. Talbot's return.
When that event took place, my old infatuation revived.
I again sought his company, and the indifference, and
even contempt, with which I was treated, filled me anew
with resentment. To persuade him of his wife's guilt
was, I thought, an effectual way of destroying whatever
remained of matrimonial happiness; and the means were
fully in my power.
Here I was again favoured by accident. Fortune
seemed determined to accomplish my ruin. My own
ingenuity in vain attempted to fall on a safe mode of putting this letter in Talbot's way, and this had never been
done if chance had not surprisingly befriended my purpose.
One evening I dropped familiarly in upon your daughter. Nobody was there but Mr. Talbot and she. She
was writing at her desk as usual, for she seemed never
at ease but with a pen in her fingers; and Mr. Talbot
seemed thoughtful and uneasy. At my entrance the
desk was hastily closed and locked. But first she took
out some papers, and, mentioning her design of going
up-stairs to put them away, she tripped to the door.
Looking back, however, she perceived she had dropped
one. This she took up, in some hurry, and withdrew.
Instead of conversing with me, Talbot walked about
the room in a peevish and gloomy humour. A thought
just then rushed into my mind. While Talbot had his
back towards me, and was at a distance, I dropped the
counterfeit, at the spot where Jane had just before
dropped her paper, and with little ceremony took my
leave. Jane had excused her absence to me, and prormised to return within five mzinuttes. It was not possible,
I thought, that Talbot's eye, as he walked backward and
forward during that interval, could miss the paper, which
would not fail to appear as if dropped by his wife.
My timidity and conscious guilt hindered me from