The Countess knelt down beside the wretched man, and offered up a fervent prayer to heaven for him. He heard it with a cold, gloomy expression, and when she ceased, only said, "I cannot say amen; I tried, but it is impossible; believe me, Ellen, I am lost,--and, what is more, I mourn not my lost heaven. I want not paradise, but rest. Could I rest for ever in the dark grave 'twill be enough. I have seen you, I have heard you forgive me; the voice I loved in better days to hear has thrilled through me; I have had all I want, leave me to finish life as I deserve. Why should you or my brother trouble yourselves more?" Tears of sorrow again coursed the Countess's cheek, as she bent over her old lover, and, taking his hand, said, "Do you love me, Edward?" "Love you? yes; beyond all things earthly and divine. Ellen, you are the only being I love," answered the Viscount, with wild emotion. "Then, if you love me, you will try and prepare for that place where I humbly hope--nay, believe--after death I shall live; you would not wish to be parted both in time and in eternity?" "Ellen, you ask an impossibility. Ask anything else. No, it is not my wish, but so it must be. In this life I have seen you afar off, in the life that is to come I must see you afar off too. Oh! that we had never met. Do you recollect what I said when on my knees, which were never bent to man or to God since that moment? did I not say your refusal would drive me to desperation? see what it has done. I do not blame you; I have myself to blame: but ours was an ill-starred acquaintance--an ill-starred love. No, no, you will mourn for me here; you will sometimes give a passing thought to one who adored you so, for never was needle truer to the north than in weal and woe my heart has been to you. This is all I ask; and for me, I am not worthy to love you,--you are like a star I may look up to and worship, but which is at once shrined far above my affection or my hate."