Ernest was moved by her emotion, and by his own remembrances; he took her hand, and pressing it with frank and respectful tenderness--"I did not think, Valerie," said he, "when I reviewed the past, I did not think that you loved me--I was not vain enough for that; but, if so, how much is your character raised in my eyes--how provident, how wise your virtue! Happier and better for both, our present feelings, each to each, than if we had indulged a brief and guilty dream of passion, at war with all that leaves passion without remorse, and bliss without alloy. Now--" "Now," interrupted Valerie, quickly, and fixing on him her dark eyes--"now you love me no longer! Yet it is better so. Well, I will go back to my cold and cheerless state of life, and forget once more that Heaven endowed me with a heart!" "Ah, Valerie! esteemed, revered, still beloved, not indeed with the fires of old, but with a deep, undying, and holy tenderness, speak not thus to me. Let me not believe you unhappy; let me think that, wise, sagacious, brilliant as you are, you have employed your gifts to reconcile yourself to a common lot. Still let me look up to you when I would despise the circles in which you live, and say: 'On that pedestal an altar is yet placed, to which the heart may bring the offerings of the soul.'" "It is in vain--in vain that I struggle," said Valerie, half-choked with emotion, and clasping her hands passionately. "Ernest, I love you still--I am wretched to think you love me no more: I would give you nothing--yet I exact all; my youth is going--my beauty dimmed--my very intellect is dulled by the life I lead; and yet I ask from you that which your young heart once felt for me. Despise me, Maltravers, I am not what I seemed--I am a hypocrite--despise me." "No," said Ernest, again possessing himself of her hand, and falling on his knee by her side. "No, never-to-be-forgotten, ever-to-be-honoured Valerie, hear me." As he spoke, he kissed the hand he held; with the other, Valerie covered her face and wept bitterly, but in silence. Ernest paused till the burst of her feelings had subsided, her hand still in his--still warmed by his kisses--kisses as pure as cavalier ever impressed on the hand of his queen.