"I feel," said she, "now, but it is too late--I feel that I have acted wrongly in quitting Bordeaux. There I was loved and respected; and if not happy, at least I was composed. Too much dependence on my resolution, and the vanity of supposing myself superior in magnanimity to the rest of my sex, induced me to trust myself in your society. Dearly, alas! have I paid for it. My only chance of victory over myself was flight from you, after I had given the irrevocable sentence; by not doing so, the poison has again found its way to my heart. I feel that I love you; that I cannot have you; and that death, very shortly, must terminate my intolerable sufferings." This affecting address pierced me to the soul; and now the consequences of my guilt and duplicity rushed upon me like a torrent through a bursting flood-gate. I would have resigned Emily, I would have fled with Eugenia to some distant country, and buried our sorrows in each other's bosoms; and, in a state of irrepressible emotion, I proposed this step to her. "What do I hear, my beloved?" said she (starting up with horror from the couch on which she was sitting, with her face between her knees), "what! is it you that would resign home, friends, character, the possession of a virtuous woman, all, for the polluted smiles of an ----" "Hold! hold! my Eugenia," said I; "do not, I beseech you, shock my ears with an epithet which you do not deserve! Mine, mine, is all the guilt; forget me, and you will still be happy." She looked at me, then at her sweet boy, who was playing on the carpet--but she made no answer; and then a flood of tears succeeded. It was, indeed, a case of singular calamity for a beautiful young creature to be placed in. She was only in her three-and-twentieth year--and, lovely as she was, nature had scarcely had time to finish the picture. The regrets which subdued my mind on that fatal morning may only be conceived by those who, like me, have led a licentious life--have, for a time, buried all moral and religious feeling, and have been suddenly called to a full sense of their guilt, and the misery they have entailed on the innocent. I sat down and groaned. I cannot say I wept, for I could not weep; but my forehead burned, and my heart was full of bitterness. While I thus meditated, Eugenia sat with her hand on her forehead, in a musing attitude. Had she been reverting to her former studies, and thrown herself into the finest conceivable posture of the tragic muse, her appearance would not have been half so beautiful and affecting. I thought she was praying, and I think so still. The tears ran in silence down her face; I kissed them off, and almost forgot Emily. "I am better now, Frank," said the poor, sorrowful woman; "do not come again until after the wedding. When will it take place?" she inquired, with a trembling and a faltering voice.