Gaspar de Montsoreau remained in the same position in which the Abbé had left him for nearly an hour, and the struggle of the various passions which agitated his heart, were perhaps as terrible as any that had ever been known to human being. His situation, indeed, was one which exposed him more than most men are ever exposed, to the contention of the most opposite feelings. He had not been led gradually on, as many are, step by step, to evil; but he had been taken from the midst of warm and kindly feelings, from the practice of right, and an habitual course of calm and tranquil enjoyment, and by the mastery of one strong and violent passion had been plunged into the midst of crimes which had left anguish and remorse behind them. Still, however, the passion which had at first led him astray, existed in all its fierceness and all its intensity; and, like some quiet field--from which the husbandman has been accustomed to gather yearly, in the calm sunshine, a rich and kindly harvest--when suddenly made the place of strife by contending armies, his heart, so tranquil and so happy not a year before, had now become the battle-place of remorse and love. Sometimes the words of the Abbé came back upon his ear, urging him to abandon for ever, as a penance for his crime, the pursuit which had already led him to such awful deeds; but then again the thought of Marie de Clairvaut, of never beholding that beautiful being again, of yielding her for ever, perhaps, to the arms of others, came across his brain, and almost drove him mad. Then would rush remorse again upon his heart, the features of his brother rose up before him, his graceful form seemed to move within his sight; the frank warm-hearted, kindly smile, that had ever greeted him when they met, was now painted by memory to his eye; and many a trait of generous kindness, many a noble, many an endearing act, the words and jests of boyhood and infancy, the long remembered sports of early years, the accidents, the adventures, the tender and twining associations of youth and happiness, forgotten in the strife of passion and the contention of rivalry, now came back, as vividly as the things of yesterday--came back, alas! now that death had ended the struggle, rendered the deeds of the past irreparable, thrown the pall of remorse over the last few months, and left memory alone to deck the tomb of the dead with bright flowers gathered from their spring of life.