"From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential, and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest heedfulness somewhere where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee, Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness. Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?" "Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole neighborhood, and go to the distant city.--That is it." "No more?" "Is it not enough?" "There is something more, Pierre." "Thou hast not yet answered a question I put to thee but just now. Bethink thee, Isabel. The deceiving of others by thee and me, in a thing wholly pertaining to ourselves, for their and our united good. Wouldst thou?" "I would do any thing that does not tend to the marring of thy best lasting fortunes, Pierre. What is it thou wouldst have thee and me to do together? I wait; I wait!" "Let us go into the room of the double casement, my sister," said Pierre, rising. "Nay, then; if it can not be said here, then can I not do it anywhere, my brother; for it would harm thee." "Girl!" cried Pierre, sternly, "if for thee I have lost"--but he checked himself. "Lost? for me? Now does the very worst blacken on me. Pierre! Pierre!" "I was foolish, and sought but to frighten thee, my sister. It was very foolish. Do thou now go on with thine innocent work here, and I will come again a few hours hence. Let me go now." He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him. "Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part, but cheat the air, and die from it. See; I let thee go, lest some poison I know not of distill upon thee from me." She slowly drooped, and trembled from him. But Pierre caught her, and supported her. "Foolish, foolish one! Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of me, thou dost reel and fall;--unanswerable emblem of the indispensable heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of parting." "What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!" "A gainful loss, my sister!" "'Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?"