One day, from his chamber window he beheld her retreating form slowly disappearing in a little copse near the manor. The whole truth flashed like lightning on his mind: that he was not the only tempter; that not with him lay the damning guilt he had supposed; that he was sought; that she could be gained. The whirlwind of passion came again. The reflection that he had too unjustly accused himself, stifled every breath of remorse; and he went forth, in heart a demon, worse than ever. He soon gained her, and heaven-attesting vows were exchanged of never-dying love. All that was honorable and fair for man to do he promised. Their interviews thenceforward were frequent and clandestine; her health was failing in a perpetual struggle, and matters were drawing to a crisis. She never told her uncle what was done; she feared, she felt in her own heart, that it was not honest love. Count Frederick, I said, had promised all that was honorable for man to do; that promise he did not intend to keep. The more he thought over it, the more fully was he persuaded that she was not sanguine of its observance. After a lengthy consideration his plot was laid, and he appointed a time with Ella for an interview at the bower. It was Roderick’s eventful evening, the one he alluded to when he said: “I could not resist a moment’s visit to the bower, for, since pleasure there seemed henceforth to be forbidden fruit to me, I longed for a moment, even of its pain.” They were both punctual to the appointment. Count Frederick was paler than usual; she noticed his agitation, and he, to cover it, took out his Virgil and read her several beautiful passages. He turned to the Æneiad, and wrought upon her mind and her sympathies with the loves and sorrows, the struggles and the fall, of the queenly Dido. She caught the incendium, and as he repeated over and over, with increasing gusto, the more inflammatory passages, in the words of the poet, like Dido herself she sat “_pendesque iterum narrantis ab ore_.” At last, as he closed the book, he gazed intently on her, trembling with the very burden of his task. He took her hand; she smiled. “Ella,” said he, “dost thou love me?” She took the book, and marked a passage with her pencil. He read: “Est mollis flamma medullas, Interea et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus.” The glow of her features attested the truth. He continued: “Wouldst thou be happy to wander the wide world over by my side, to revel in the gayeties of Paris, to stand amid the awful ruins of Athens and Palmyra, to tread the hallowed spots of Palestine, and bask in the sunny skies of Italy?” “With thee and honor, anywhere.” “Ella, thou hast a picture; let me see it? Who gave it thee?” “My mother.” “When?—dost thou remember?” “Yes, when I was a tiny child. She gave it in my hands and said it was all I had from my dear father but his name.” “Thou hast his name. Dost thou know, Ella, who this is?” “I never knew.”