"Ah, speak not with such cruel coldness!"

"It is all I have for thee. Listen to me, signor. When I look on your
face, when I hear your voice, a certain serene and tranquil calm creeps
over and lulls thoughts, oh, how feverish, how wild! When thou art
gone, the day seems a shade more dark; but the shadow soon flies. I
miss thee not, I think not of thee,--no, I love thee not; and I will
give myself only where I love."

"But I would teach thee to love me,--fear it not. Nay, such love as
thou now describest in our tranquil climates is the love of innocence
and youth."

"And it is the innocence he would destroy," said Isabel, rather to
herself than to him.

Glyndon drew back, conscience-stricken.

"No, it may not be!" she said, rising, and extricating her hand gently
from his grasp. "Leave me, and forget me. You do not understand, you
could not comprehend, the nature of her whom you think to love. From my
childhood upward, I have felt as if I were marked out for some strange
and preternatural doom; as if I were singled from my kind. This feeling
(and, oh! at times it is one of delirious and vague delight, at others
of the darkest gloom) deepens with me day by day. It is like the shadow
of twilight, spreading slowly and solemnly round. My hour approaches; a
little while, and it will be night!"

As she spoke, Glyndon listened with visible emotion and perturbation.
"Isabel!" he exclaimed, as she ceased, "your words more than ever