"Yes! had you been sincere with me then, grieved and disappointed as I would have felt, I would have respected you the more, and loved you none the less for the disclosure. But when, after a year and a half of married life, I learn that the woman I have loved and trusted with my whole soul--from whom I have never concealed a thought that it could interest her to know--has all the while been playing a false part--vowing at the altar to love me and me alone, when she secretly idolized another; bearing my name, living beneath my roof, sleeping in my bosom--yet thinking of, and caring for him, treasuring his keepsakes as the most precious of her possessions--is it strange that, when the tongue of a vulgar gossip proclaims my shame in my hearing, and other evidence proves what I thought was his vile slander to be true as gospel--is it strange, I say, that I am incensed at the deception practised upon me--at the infamous outrage of my dearest hopes--my most holy feelings?" She threw herself at his feet, clasped his knees, and implored him, chokingly, to "forgive" her. "Oh! if you knew what I have suffered!" "What you have suffered!" He folded his arms and looked sorrowfully down at her crouching figure. "Yes! you were not by nature coarse and unfeeling! The violence you have committed upon your heart and every principle of delicacy and truth must have cost you pain. Then you loved him!" "Once! a long while ago!" said Sarah, hiding her face in her hands. "Take care!" There was no softness now in his tone. "Remember that I have seen you together day by day, and that glances and actions, unnoticed at the time in my stupid blindness, recur to me now with terrible meaning. For once, speak the true voice of feeling, and own what I know already, that all the love you ever had to give belongs still to your sister's husband!"