The emotions of Oswald and Corinne had frequently interrupted their progress: at last they were obliged to give up the attempt. She trembled lest he should harm himself by weeping, unconscious that her tears flowed fast as his. "Yes," sobbed Nevil; "yes, sweetest friend of my bosom, the floods of our hearts have mingled; you have mourned with me that guardian saint whose last embrace yet thrills my breast, whose noble countenance I still behold. Perhaps he has chosen thee for my solace."--"No, no," exclaimed Corinne; "he did not think me worthy."--"What say you?" interrupted Oswald; and, alarmed lest she had betrayed herself, she replied: "He might not have thought me worthy of you." This slight change of phrase dissipated his uneasiness, and he fearlessly continued speaking of his father. The physicians arrived, and slightly reassured him; but absolutely forbade his attempting to converse, until his internal hurt was healed. Six whole days passed, during which Corinne never left him. With gentle firmness she enjoined his silence, yet contrived to vary the hours by reading, music, and sometimes by a sportive dialogue, in which she sustained both parts; serious or gay, it was for his sake that she supported herself, veiling beneath a thousand graceful arts the solicitude which consumed her; she was never off her guard for an instant. She perceived what Oswald suffered, almost before himself: the courage he assumed deceived her not: she did, indeed, "anticipate the asking eye," while her chief endeavor was that of diverting his mind, as much as possible, from the value of these tender offices. If he turned pale, the rose fled from her lip, and her hand trembled as she brought him a restorative: even then would she smile through her tears, and press his hand to her heart, as if she would fain have added her stock of life to his. At last her efforts succeeded: he recovered. "Corinne," he said, as soon as permitted to speak, "why has not my friend Edgarmond witnessed your conduct? he would have seen that you are not less good than great; that domestic life with you would be a perpetual enchantment; that you differ from our women only in adding charms to virtue. It is too much! here ends the combat that so nearly reduced me to the grave. Corinne! you, who conceal your own secrets, shall hear all mine, and pronounce our doom."--"Our doom," she replied, "if you feel as I do, is--not to part; yet believe me, till now, at least, I have never dared to wish myself your wife: the scheme of my existence is entirely disordered by the love that every day enslaves me more and more; yet I know not if we ought to marry."--"Corinne," he cried, "do you despise me for having hesitated? Can you attribute my delay to contemptible motives? Have you not guessed that the deep remorse to which I have been for two years a prey alone has been the cause?"--"I know it," she answered. "Had I suspected you of considerations foreign to those of the heart,