Every chord of Rosamond's heart quivered with agony at this burst of indignant feeling from lips which had never before addressed her but in mild and persuasive tones. Had the wealth of worlds been laid at her feet, she would have given it to recall the last words she had uttered. Still, in the midst of her remorse and horror, she felt the overmastering influence of her imagined wrongs, and that influence triumphed over the suggestions of reason and the admonitions of prudence. "It is ungenerous--it is unmanly," she cried, "to force me into the confession of sentiments which you blame me for declaring--I had said nothing, done nothing--yet you arraign me before the bar of inexorable justice, as the champion of the injured Eugenia. If the sincerity of my countenance offends you, it is my misfortune, not my fault. I cannot smile on the boldness I condemn, or the arts I despise." "Boldness! arts!" repeated Cecil. "If there was ever an unaffected, impulsive child of nature, it is she whom you so deeply wrong; but you wrong yourself far more. You let yourself down from the high station where I had enthroned you, and paid you a homage scarcely inferior to an angel of light. You make me an alien from your bosom, and nourish there a serpent which will wind you deeper and deeper in its envenomed folds, till your heart-strings are crushed beneath its coils." "I am indeed most wretched," exclaimed Rosamond; "and if I have made myself so, I deserve pity rather than upbraiding. Cecil, you never could have loved me, or you would not so lightly cast me from you." Cecil, who had snatched up his hat, and laid his hand on the latch of the door, turned at the altered tone of her voice. Tears, which she vainly endeavoured to hide, gushed from her eyes, and stole down her colourless cheeks. "Rosamond," said he, in a softened tone, approaching her as he spoke, "if you believe what you last uttered, turn away from me, and let us henceforth be strangers to each other;--but if your heart belies their meaning, if you can restore me the confidence you have withdrawn, and which is my just due, if you are willing to rely unwaveringly on my integrity, my honour, and my love, come to my arms once more, and they shall shelter you through life with unabated tenderness and undivided devotion."