"You are at liberty to doubt my friendship; but I will not leave my motives open to misconstruction. I repeat to you that I give you this warning, for _his_ sake as much as for yours." "And why for his sake?" "Because if you avoid him you may save him from the perpetration of a crime. The whole energies of his mind are directed to one end. He lives for nothing else, and will pursue it at any cost or peril to himself. I know him. If you are wise, you will heed my warning. If not, take your own course. I have discharged my conscience, and have done." As he spoke these words, he drew his chair toward the fire, and sat musing as if he had dropped out of the conversation. "Forrester," I exclaimed, "one question more! Why did you not communicate this to Astræa yourself? Why did you leave to me the pain of carrying home such ill news?" "Home!" repeated Forrester, involuntarily; then, raising his voice, he went on: "Why did I not go to her, and tell her that she ought to separate from you, if she had any regard for her own future security? What should you have thought of my friendship if I had done that? Why, you distrust me as it is." "No--I have no distrusts. It is evident on which side your sympathies are engaged." "With whom should I sympathize--the wronged, or the wrong-doer?" "When we parted last, I believed that you felt otherwise." "When we parted last, you had made impressions upon me which I have since found to be deceptive. I do not blame you for that. You told your story in your own way, from your own point of sight: I believed it to be true. Nor had I then looked into this man's heart--this suffering man in his agony, whom you painted as a monster: I did not then know how capable he was of loving and of suffering for love's sake--the noblest and the most sorrowful of all suffering! nor how gently that heart, crushed and struck to the core, had risen again to life, strengthened and sweetened by the injuries it had learned to forgive! You can not judge of that tenderness of soul, out of which a happier fortune and a prosperous love might have drawn a life of kindliness and charity. You--who, having accomplished your desires, are now reposing in the lull of your sated passions--you can see nothing in him but the evil which you have helped to nourish; his sacrifices and magnanimity are all darkness to you." "I will listen no longer," I said, starting up from my chair. "I see distinctly what is before me. Old friends fall from us in our adversities. Well! new ones must be made. It is some comfort that the world is wide enough for us all, and that the loss, even of such a friend as you, is not irreparable."