“If you could be happy with me yourself,” he answered, smiling in his turn, and without an effort, although his smile was pensive and sad likewise. “No, my Theresa, I am not hurt nor wounded. I am grieved, it is true, I cannot but be grieved at the dissipating of a pleasant dream, at the vanishing of a hope long indulged, long cherished—a hope which has been a solace to me in many a moment of pain and trial, a sweet companion in many a midnight watch. But I am neither hurt nor wounded; for you have never given me any reason to form so bold, so unwarranted hope, and you have given me now all that you can give me, sympathy and kindness. Our hearts, our affections, I well know, let men say what they will, are not our own to give—and a true woman can but do what you have done. Moreover, even with the sorrow and regret which I feel at this moment, there is mingled a conviction that you are doing what is both wise and right; for although you have all within yourself, though you are all that would make me, or a far better man than I, ay, the best man who ever breathed the breath of life, supremely happy; still, if you could not be happy with me, and in me yourself—how could I be so?” She looked up at him again, and now, with an altered expression, for there was less of sadness and more of surprise, more of respect for the man who spoke so composedly, so well, in a moment of such trial, on her fair features. Perhaps, too, there might have been a shadow of regret—could it be of regret that he did not feel more acutely the loss which he had undergone? If there were such a feeling in her mind—for she was woman—it was transient as the lightning of a summer’s night—it was gone before she had time even to reproach herself for its momentary existence. “You are astonished,” he said, interpreting her glance, almost before she knew that he had observed it, “you are astonished that I should be so calm, who am by nature so quick and headlong. But I, too, have learned much to-day—have learned much of my own nature, of my own infirmities, of my own errors—and with me to learn that these exist, is to resolve to conquer them. I have learned first, Theresa, that my father, whom I have ever been forced to regard as my worst enemy, died conscious of the wrong he had done me—done my mother—and penitent, and full of love and of sorrow for us both. And therein have I convicted myself of one great error, committed, indeed, through ignorance, which has, however, been the cause, the source of many other errors—which has led me to charge the world with injustice, when I was myself unjust rather to the world, which has made me guilty of the great offence, the great crime of hating my brother men, when I should have pitied them, and loved them. Therefore I will be wayward no more, nor rash, nor reckless. I will make one conquest at least—that of myself and of my own passions.”