"'Father,' he said, still holding my hand, perhaps because he felt how I trembled, 'father, Crystal has come to ask your pardon and Margaret's also for the pain she has caused you both, and to say that, with God's help, she will never offend so again.' "Never! oh, Raby, never! when the inborn enemy was strong as death and cruel as the grave. Oh, my good angel, Raby, what have the years written, against me--against me--your unhappy child?" CHAPTER XXIV. A GRAVE DECISION. From the day I brought to England my poor searching face (An orphan even of my father's grave); He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine, Which in me grew, and heighten'd into love. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. "The years rolled by, but, alas! they brought no added happiness with them. The taint in my nature that had revealed itself so unexpectedly, only developed more strongly as time went on; at rare intervals--very rare, I am thankful to say--fierce gusts of passion overmastered my reason, so that for a brief time I seemed like one possessed with an evil spirit. "They tried everything--everything that human wisdom and kindness could devise to save me from myself, but in vain. All causes for offense were removed, and every possible means taken to ward off the threatened excitement; but when the paroxysms came, they wasted no words, no severity upon me, they simply left me to myself. "But the punishment that followed was a terrible one. For days and days after one of these outbreaks, sometimes for a week together, Raby would refuse to speak to me or to hold any communication at all. "Our walks and rides, our pleasant studies, were all broken off, every little office and attention refused, my remarks met by a chilling manner that drove me to silence. "Left completely to my own society, I wandered aimlessly about the house or sat moping over my books or work in a corner. I never sought to rebel against the rigor of my sentence; it was a just one I knew, and I bore it as patiently as I could. And then all at once, sometimes when I least expected it, when I was most hopeless and forlorn, a hand would be placed on my head in the old caressing manner, and a low 'forgiven, darling,' would bring me back to sunshine and happiness; but, oh, how he suffered. I never knew until afterward that his punishment was even greater than mine. "I am speaking now of my younger days, but presently there came a time when they treated it less as a fault than a malady; when Raby dreaded the repentance more than the paroxysm, for so poignant was my anguish of remorse that it threatened to prey on my health.