I pitied him,--from the bottom of my soul I pitied him, his countenance expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had bowed my shoulder to the cross; but as soon as the burden galled and oppressed me, I had hurled it from me, exclaiming, "it was greater than I could bear." I _had_ deceived, though not betrayed him. I _had_ put myself in the power of a villain, and exposed myself to the tongue of slander. I had expected, dreaded his anger; and was it not partly just? As these thoughts darted through my mind with the swiftness and power of lightning, love returned in all its living warmth, and anguish in proportion to the wound it had received. I was borne down irresistibly by the weight of my emotions. My knees bent under me. I bowed my face on the sofa; and tears, hot and fast as tropic rain, gushed from my eyes. I wept for him even more than myself,--wept for the "dark-spotted flower" twined with the roses of love. I heard him walking the room with troubled steps; and every step sounded as mournful to me as the earth-fall on the coffin-lid. Their echo was scarcely audible on the soft, yielding carpet; yet they seemed loud and heavy to my excited ear. Then I heard him approach the sofa, and stop, close to the spot where I knelt. My heart almost ceased beating; when he suddenly knelt at my side, and put his arms around me. "Gabriella!" said he, "if I have done you wrong, may God forgive me; but I never can forgive myself." Accents of love issuing from the grave could hardly have been more thrilling or unexpected. I turned, and leaning my head on his shoulder, I felt myself drawn closer and closer to the heart from which I believed myself for ever estranged. I entreated his forgiveness for having deceived him. I told him, for I believed it then, that the purity of the motive did not justify the act; and I promised in the most solemn manner never again, under any circumstances, to bind myself to do any thing unknown to him, or even to act spontaneously without his knowledge. In the rapture of reconciliation, I was willing to give any pledge as a security for love, without realizing that jealousy was a Shylock, exacting the fulfilment of the bond,--the pound of flesh "nearest the heart." Yes, more exacting still, for _he_ paused, when forbidden to spill the red life-drops, and dropped the murderous knife.