Well!--Have you ended?--And do you still continue to breathe?--Are you not a statue?--Would not the whole universe denounce me liar if, knowing me, I were to tell it that words like these were not only spoken to me but are written, lest I should forget the maddening injuries they contain?--What! Make me her confessor?--Me?--No secret sin, of thought, word, or deed, concealed!--All remembered, all recited, all avowed!--Sins committed with the hated Henley!--Sins against love, against Clifton!--Does she imagine I can look on a paper like this and, while my eye shoots along the daring the insulting line, not feel all the fires that now devour me?--Surely she is frantic! These things, Fairfax, are above my comprehension! My I amazement must be eternal, for I never shall be able to understand them.--What! Tell me, Clifton, of her amorous debates with such a fellow? Appoint him her head-usher over me? Announce him my rival? Meet my eye unabashed and affirm him to be my superior? Inform me of the deep hold he has taken of her heart? Own she kissed him? Once again it is incredible! Nay most and still more incredible; for, strange to say and yet more strange for her to do, even this received such a varnish from her lips, her eyes, her beauties, her irradiating zeal, that reason everlastingly renounce me if I scarcely knew, while she spoke, whether it were not the history of some sylph, some heavenly spirit she was reciting? Yes, Fairfax! There was a moment, a short but dangerous moment, at which so charmed was I by her eloquence, so amazed by her daring sincerity, so moved by the white candour of a soul so seeming pure, that, possessed by I know not what booby devil of generosity, I was on the point of throwing myself at her feet, confessing the whole guilt of my intents, and proclaiming myself her true and irrevocable convert! And this before the breath that uttered these injuries was cold! The siren!--All the beauteous witcheries that ever yet were said or sung do not equal her!--Circe, Calypso, Morgana, fairy or goddess, mortal or immortal, knew not to mix the magic cup with so much art! Not that it was her arguments. What are they? It was her bright her beaming eyes, her pouting beauteous lips, her palpitating ecstatic bosom, her--I know not what, except that even this was not all!--No!--There was something still more heavenly!--An emanating deity!--The celestial effulgence of a divine soul, that flowed with fervour almost convulsive! Had you witnessed her elevated aspirations!--Such swelling passions so mastered, so controlled, till then I never beheld! Like the slow pause of the solemn death-bell, the big tear at stated periods dropped; but dropped unheeded. Though she could not exclude them, her stoic soul disdained to notice such intrusive guests!--Her whole frame shook with the warfare between the feelings and the will--And well might it shake!