thus to have exposed her feelings.--"No, no!" she cried, clinging to him distractedly; "you cannot plunge me into such despair. How have I merited it? or--or--you mean that you will take me with you?"--"Let us leave this cruel crowd," he said: "come with me, Corinne." She followed him, not understanding aught addressed to her, answering at random; her gait and look so changed, that every one believed her struck with sudden illness. CHAPTER III. When they were in the gondola, she raved: "What you have made me feel is worse than death: be generous: throw me into these waves, that I may lose the sense which maddens me. Oswald, be brave: I have seen you do things that required more courage."--"Hold, hold!" he cried, "if you would not drive me to suicide. Hear me, when we have reached your house, and then pronounce our fate. In the name of Heaven be calm!" There was such misery in his accents that she was silent; but trembled so violently, that she could hardly walk up the stairs to her apartment. There she tore off her ornaments in dismay; and, as Lord Nevil saw _her_ in this state, a few moments since so brilliant, he sank upon a seat in tears.--"Am I a barbarian?" he cried. "Corinne! Just Heaven! Corinne! do you not think me so?"--"No," she said, "no, I cannot.--Have you not still that look which every day gives me fresh comfort? Oswald, your presence is a ray from heaven--can I then fear you?--not dare to read your eyes? but fall before you as before my murderer? Oh, Oswald! Oswald!" and she threw herself at his feet in supplication. "What do I see," he exclaimed, raising her vehemently, "would you dishonor me? Well, be it so. My regiment embarks in a month. I will remain, if you betray this all-commanding grief, but I shall not survive my shame."--"I ask you not to stay," she said; "but what harm can I do by following you!"--"We go to the West Indies, and no officer is allowed to take his wife."--"Well, well, at least let me go to England with you."--"My letters also tell me," answered he, "that reports concerning us are already in the papers there; that your identity is suspected; and your family, excited by Lady Edgarmond, refuses to meet or own you. Give me but time to reconcile them, to enforce your rights with your step-mother; for if I take you thither, and leave you, ere your name be cleared, you will endure all the severe opinions which I shall not be by to answer."--"Then you refuse me everything!" she said, and sank insensible to the earth, her forehead receiving a wound in the fall. Oswald shrieked at the sight. Thérésina entered in extreme alarm, and restored her mistress to animation; but when Corinne perceived, in an opposite mirror, her own pale and disfigured face--"Oswald," she sighed, "it was not thus I looked the day you met me first. I wore the crown of hope and fame, now blood and dust are on my brow; yet it is not for you to despise the state to which you have reduced me. Others may--but you cannot--you