"Ronayne, my almost son," she said, leaning her arm affectionately on his shoulder, "it was with the view that suspicion should be excited in your mind by my language that I stated what I did. I did not wish the truth to burst upon you with annihilating suddenness, and therefore sought to prepare you for the blow I am destined to inflict." "And that is--" he said, with stern and furrowed brow, a pallid cheek, and compressed lip. "Nay, Ronayne, I like not that tone and manner." "Proceed, Mrs. Headley, pray proceed; I am ready to hear all. Whence this sorrow so much keener than that I now endure, and how is it connected with Wau-nan-gee!" "Has it never occurred to you to connect the one with the other?" she observed, in low and uncertain accents. "Ha! is it that?" he exclaimed, vehemently starting and hurriedly pacing the apartment. "It is then even as your words had led me to infer. Still, I would not approach the subject myself. I waited for something more direct from your lips. You have uttered it, and I am now prepared to hear all. But, Mrs. Headley, mark me, be well assured of all you say; let not mere appearances be the groundwork of your suspicions, or you destroy two generous hearts for ever; but," he resumed more calmly, yet with a look of fierce determination, as he once more seated himself at her side, "although the love I bear Maria is deeper far than man ever bore for woman, assure me that it is not returned, that this soft--eyed boy, with Indian guile, has stolen the love in which I lived, and then I tear her from my heart for ever. Think me no mere puling fawnster, craving a love that is not freely given. As the passion that I feel is fire, hot as the Virginian sun that nurtured me, so will it become ice the moment it ceases to be fed by that which first enkindled it. Yes," he continued, bitterly, "I could tear my heart out if in its weakness it could pine for one, however once endeared, who had ceased to respond to all its devotedness and worship. I might think of her, but only to sustain my wounded spirit. Contempt and scorn for her fickleness, not love--base and grovelling love--should ever be associated with her image, when undesiredly it arose to my repelling memory. But oh, God!" he exclaimed, bowing his head upon hand, and yielding to his deep emotion, "is it possible that this can be! Can it be that I should ever speak and think of Maria thus! Oh, whence this too great affliction! why this separation of soul from soul! this rending asunder of the mystic bond that once united us! But stop!" and he raised his head, the hot and inflaming tears still gathering in his eyes, "she cannot surely thus have acted, and yet--and yet--oh! Mrs. Headley, if you knew the desolation of my heart, you would pity me. It is crushed, crushed!"