they will bear me to honour and safety! For you I have given up all that my newly-taught duties have told me was holy!--all that my heart long ago whispered I ought to love! Judge by what I _have_ sacrificed, of what I _can_ sacrifice--and doubt not that I would be my own victim ten thousand times sooner than yours!”--“By all that you deem holy!” cried Melmoth, humbling himself even to kneel before her as she stood,--“my intentions are as pure as your own soul!--the hermitage is not an hundred paces off. Come, and do not, by a fantastic and causeless apprehension, frustrate all the magnanimity and tenderness you have hitherto shewed, and which have raised you in my eyes not only above your sex, but above your whole species. Had you not been what you are, and what no other but you could be, you had never been the bride of Melmoth. With whom but you did he ever seek to unite his dark and inscrutable destiny? Isidora,” he added, in tones more potent and emphatic, perceiving she still hesitated, and clung to the tree--“Isidora, how weak, how unworthy of you is this! You are in my power,--absolutely, hopelessly in my power. No human eye can see _me_--no human arm can aid _you_. You are as helpless as infancy in my grasp. This dark stream would tell no tales of deeds that stained its waters,--and the blast that howls round you would never waft your groans to mortal ear! You are in my power, yet I seek not to abuse it. I offer you my hand to conduct you to a consecrated building, where we shall be united according to the fashion of your country--and will you still persevere in this fanciful and profitless waywardness?” “As he spoke, Isidora looked round her helplessly--every object was a confirmation of his arguments--she shuddered and submitted. But as they walked on in silence, she could not help interrupting it to give utterance to the thousand anxieties that oppressed her heart. “But you speak,” said she, in a suppressed and pleading tone,--“you speak of religion in words that make me tremble--you speak of it as the fashion of a country,--as a thing of form, of accident, of habit. What faith do you profess?--what church do you frequent?--what holy rites do you perform?”--“I venerate all faiths--alike, I hold all religious rites--pretty much in the same respect,” said Melmoth, while his former wild and scoffing levity seemed to struggle vainly with a feeling of involuntary horror. “And do you then, indeed, believe in holy things?” asked Isidora. “Do you indeed?” she repeated anxiously. “_I believe in a God_,” answered Melmoth, in a voice that froze her blood; “you have heard of those who believe and tremble,--such is he who speaks to you!”