give vent to any word, or license to any look, that told you I loved you still? Why, above all, on that fated yesterday, when we stood alone surrounded by the waters,--why did I dare forget myself--why clasp you to my breast--why utter the assurance of that love which was a mockery, if I were not about solemnly to record it? "This you will ask; and if you are not satisfied with the answer, your pride will clothe my memory with resentment. Be it so--yet hear me. Constance, when, in my first youth, at the time when the wax was yet soft, and the tree might yet be bent--when I laid my heart and my future lot at your feet--when you, at the dictates of a worldly and cold ambition (disguise the name as you will, the reality is the same), threw me back on the solitary desert of life; when you rejected--forsook me;--do you think that, although I loved you still, there was no anger mingled with the love! We met again: but what years of wasted existence--of dimmed hope--of deadened emotion--had passed over me since then! And who had thus marked them? You! Do you wonder, then, that something of human pride asked for human vengeance? Yes! I pined for some triumph in my turn: I longed to try whether I was yet forgotten--whether the heart which stung me had been stung also in the wound that it inflicted. Was not this natural? Ask yourself, and blame me if you can. But by degrees, as I gazed upon a beauty, and listened to a voice, softer in their character than of old,--as I felt that you would not deny me retribution, this selfish desire for revenge died away, and, by degrees, all emotions were merged in one--unconquered, unconquerable love. And can you blame me, if then--traitor to myself as to you--I lingered on the spot?--if I had many struggles to endure before I could resolve on the sacrifice I now make? Alas! it has cost me much to be just. Can you blame me if at all times I could not control my words and looks? Nay, even in our last meeting, when I was maddened by the thought that we were about to part for ever--when we stood alone--when no eye was near--when you clung to me in a delicious timidity--when your breath was on my cheek--when the heaving of your heart was heard by mine--when my hand touched that which could give me all the world in itself--when my arm encircled that glorious and divine shape--0 Heaven! can you blame me--can you wonder if I was transported beyond myself;--if conscience, reason, all were forgotten, and I thought--felt--lived--but for the moment and for you? No, you will feel for the weakness of nature; you will not judge me harshly.