"I assure you, Charles, I had entirely forgotten all that had occurred." "Because your good and generous nature is incapable of feeling ill-will towards any one. Truly there are times when I seriously ask myself how I have been able so long to undervalue so many rare and precious qualities as are contained within your breast." "Charles, you pain me. I beseech you----" "No, I say again, I cannot tell where could have been my judgment, my discrimination. Yet that accounts, too, for the almost blind confidence I have ever reposed in you, always excepting those foolish, groundless fits of jealousy which have from time to time ruffled my repose; and you can scarcely believe how greatly our yesterday's conversation has increased the confidence I previously entertained." "Charles!" "At first, I will candidly confess, the candour with which you stated your fears did render me somewhat uneasy, but, upon subsequent reflection, I found in all you had said the most satisfactory assurances of your future truth and honour, as well as a fresh proof of the exemplary good principle which regulates your every action." "I entreat of you," said Bertha, with a degree of confusion, which did not escape the searching eye of her husband, "I entreat of you not to allude further to so painful a subject." "On the contrary, let it be my punishment to speak much and constantly of a scene in which I confess I acted like a fool and a brute,--like an idiot. I was offended with your candour and perfect ingenuousness: why should not modesty be as regular an accompaniment to honour as it is to talent? Suppose I had requested you to sing before a numerous audience, would you have said, willingly, for I feel assured of acquitting myself admirably? Oh, no, on the contrary, you would have expressed all manner of fears; and yet it is no flattery to say your talents are unrivalled. Now in the same spirit of modesty did you reply to my expressed wish that you should exhibit yourself more frequently, mix more in the great and the gay world, you then sensibly remarked, 'I wish to remain faithful to all the duties belonging to my station, but I dread the perils and temptations by which a young person like myself is ordinarily beset, and I had much rather fly from such dangers than attempt to combat them.'" "Again!" said Bertha, deeply and unaffectedly touched by her husband's mild and tolerant language, "let me implore as a favour that you will revert no more to the past." "Nay, nay," answered De Brévannes gaily, "you shall not induce me to give up my point! I am determined to prove to you that I am as indefatigable in the pursuit of good as evil, and that my frankness equals your uprightness, which is not awarding a very slender compliment to myself; and you shall to-day learn what my evil temper of yesterday made me keep concealed from you." "What was it?"