Years of silent deceit." I shook my head a little at the word; speak I could not, for the minister's wife was not deaf. Aaron called her away a moment later. "It was deceit, Miss Percival," Miss Axtell said, so soon as she found our two selves alone. "I could not well avoid it; if I were tried again, I might repeat the sin; but, thank Heaven, two such trials never come into a single life. I sometimes wish Bernard were not at sea, that he were here to know my release and his forgiveness; it will be so sweet to feel that no longer I have the sin t