"I said I would try not to blame you. I blame only myself. Like all men, you are strong in protestations, and feeble, timid, and vacillating in action. You are thinking now of the world, which only last night you so courageously despised. A few hours ago, you believed yourself so superior to the common weaknesses of your sex, that you were ready to make the most heroic sacrifices. What has become of that vehement resolution, that brave self-reliance? Vanished on the instant you are put to the proof. Believe me, you have miscalculated your own nature--all men do in such cases. A woman whose heart is her life, and who shrinks in terror from all other conflicts, is alone equal to such a struggle as this. The world is your proper sphere; do not deceive yourself. You could not sustain isolation; you would be forever looking back, as you are at this moment, for the consolations and support you had abandoned." "No, Astræa!" I exclaimed; "you wrong me. My resolution is unchanged; but you must allow something for the suddenness--the shock--" "I give you credit," she resumed, "for the best intentions. It is not your fault that habit and a constitutional acquiescence in it have left you no power over your will in great emergencies. You are what the world has made you; and you should be thankful that you have found it out in time. For me, what does it matter? By coming here, I have violated obligations for which society will hold me accountable, though they pressed like prison-bars upon me, lacerating and corroding my soul. It will admit no excuse for their abandonment in the unutterable misery they entailed. I am as guilty by this one step as if I had plunged into the depths of crime. The world does not recognize the doctrine that the real crime is in the admission of the first disloyal thought; it only looks to appearances which I have outraged. I have compromised myself beyond redemption. I can not retrieve my disgrace, though I am as pure in act as if we had never met. But I have done it upon my own responsibility, and upon me alone let the penalty fall. From this hour I release you." Her language, and the dignity of her manner, stung me. She seemed to tower above me in the strength of her will, and the firmness with which she went through a scene that shattered my nerves fearfully, and made me equally irresolute of speech and purpose. While I was harrowed by an agony that fluttered in every pulse, she was perfectly calm and collected, and, rising quietly from her seat, turned away to leave me.