"
"Cease, ah, cease these vehement self-reproaches!" returned he,
tenderly replacing her on the sofa. "Shame does not depend on
possessing passions, but in yielding to them. You have conquered
yours, dear Lady Sara; and in future I must respect and love you like
a sister of my heart."
"Noble Constantine! there is no guile in thee," exclaimed she,
straining his hand to her lips. "May Heaven bless you wherever you
go!"
He dropped on his knees, imprinted on both her hands a true brother's
sacred kiss, and, hastily rising, was quitting the room without a
word, when he heard, in a short, low sound from her voice, "O, why
had I not a mother, a sister, to love and pity me! Should I have been
such a wretch as now?"
Thaddeus turned from the door at the tone and substance of this
apparently unconsciously uttered apostrophe. She was standing with
her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed on the ground. By an
irresistible impulse he approached her. "Lady Sara," said he, with a
tender reverence in his voice, "there is penitence and prayer to a
better Parent in those words! Look up to Him, and He will save you
from yourself, and bless you in your husband."
She did raise her eyes at this adjuration, and without one earthward
glance at her young monitor in their movement to the heaven she
sought. Neither did she speak, but pressed, with an unutterable
emotion, the hand which now held hers, while his own heart did indeed
silently re-echo the prayer he saw in her upward eyes.
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