Roderick’s society still possessed a singular charm for her. In his presence she became more like her former self. She still loved him with a calm, settled love, which nothing on earth could ever destroy. When he turned his mournful gaze toward her, there was so much of tenderness and truth, so much of ill-concealed anxiety and trust, that tears of anguish and of pity would gather upon her eyelids, and she would turn her head, to brush them away unseen. There was no selfishness in her love for him; it was virtuous and sincere, unshaken; yet, in his absence her thoughts continually recurred to the all-absorbing passion that possessed her. Day after day would she go to the bower, but she found no pretext now, in duty to Roderick, for she always returned before it was time for him to be there, and he never knew she went. He said to me on the mount, when relating this portion of his history—“She never went to the bower any more.” Count Frederick did not come again. He secluded himself at home more closely than ever—and let us not trespass upon the sanctuary of a penitent heart. Poor Ella might have been seen day after day, as evening drew near, wandering alone over the hill, watching, with intense anxiety, the path which Count Frederick would take in case he _should_ go out upon his evening walk. A mournful, restless spirit of solitude she seemed, ever wending her silent way among the evening shadows, never venturing upon the sun-lit green. At last her daring steps would turn toward the manor, and she would take its circuit, on her way to the bower. Once she passed, muffled and trembling, through the very lawn. O! could she have seen herself as others would have seen her, she would have sunk into the earth for very shame. How strange—that he who had been the ruthless tempter, in heart and mind the fell destroyer, should now, whilst retiring in virtuous seclusion, become the tempted! How strange, how passing strange—that she, poor victim, should become tempter, persecutor! Yet so it was: and such is man.—And such is woman—when she falls.