You would not have
thought this condition hard a year ago. What has occurred to change you?
You loved me then--by Heaven you love me still! Oh, say so, Miriam, and
make me doubly blessed! Am I deceived in the expression of that beaming
eye? You will pardon, bless me;" and he knelt humbly at my feet, and
clasped my hand.
"Rise, Claude," I said, "and forgive me if a momentary feeling of
triumph, that may have lit my eye, was mingled with the feeling of
entire emancipation from all past weakness, which this hour so surely
proves, and so satisfactorily, to my own spirit. You are to me like any
other stranger."
He was standing sullenly before me now, his head dropping on his breast,
his hands loosely clasped before him.
"You are deceived," I pursued, calmly, "if you imagine from any
expression of mine that one ray of love survives the ruin of other days.
I told you the truth when I said all was over between us forever. Did
you suppose me a woman to sit down in the ashes because one man--one
woman of all God's manifold creation--had proved false, or treacherous,
or ungrateful? I should have wronged my youth, my soul, my descent, my
God, had I so yielded. Go and fulfill your contract faithfully this
time; a second rupture might not go so well with you as the first. There
are persons who are singularly tenacious of their possessions, and who
number their bondsmen as a principal portion of their property.
Pages:
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241