It must have been that my eyes betrayed my feelings that Isora loved me not, that she shrank from me even at the first: why else should I not have called forth the same sentiments which she gave to you? Was not my form cast in a mould as fair as yours? did not my voice whisper in as sweet a tone? did I not love her with as wild a love? Why should she not have loved me? I was the first whom she behold: she would--ay, perhaps she would have loved me, if you had not come and marred all. Curse yourself, then, that you were my rival! curse yourself that you made my heart as a furnace, and smote my brain with frenzy; curse--O sweet Virgin, forgive me!--I know not,--I know not what my tongue utters or my hand traces! You came, then, Morton, you came; you knew her; you loved her; she loved you. I learned that you had gained admittance to the cottage, and the moment I learned it, I looked on Isora, and felt my fate, as by intuition: I saw at once that she was prepared to love you; I saw the very moment when that love kindled from conception into form; I saw--and at that moment my eyes reeled and my ears rang as with the sound of a rushing sea, and I thought I felt a cord snap within my brain, which has never been united again. Once only, after your introduction to the cottage, did I think of confiding to you my love and rivalship; you remember one night when we met by the castle cave, and when your kindness touched and softened me despite of myself. The day after that night I sought you, with the intention of communicating to you all; and while I was yet struggling with my embarrassment and the suffocating tide of my emotions, you premeditated me by giving me /your/ confidence. Engrossed by your own feelings, you were not observant of mine; and as you dwelt and dilated upon your love for Isora, all emotions, save those of agony and of fury, vanished from my breast. I did not answer you then at any length, for I was too agitated to trust to prolix speech; but by the next day I had recovered myself, and I resolved, as far as I was able, to play the hypocrite. "he cannot love her as I do!" I said; "perhaps I may, without disclosure of my rivalship and without sin in the attempt, detach him from her by reason." Fraught with this idea, I collected myself, sought you, remonstrated with you, represented the worldly folly of your love, and uttered all that prudence preaches--in vain, when it preaches against passion!