Isaura beheld the anguish of his face with bewildered eyes. "How can my
words pain you?" she said, drearily. "Did you not write that I had
unfitted myself to be wife to you?"

"I?"

"That I had left behind me the peaceful immunities of private life? I
felt you were so right! Yes! I am affianced to one who thinks that in
spite of that misfortune--"

"Stop, I command you--stop! You saw my letter to Mrs. Morley. I have
not had one moment free from torture and remorse since I wrote it. But
whatever in that letter you might justly resent--"

"I did not resent--"

Graham heard not the interruption, but hurried on. "You would forgive
could you read my heart. No matter. Every sentiment in that letter,
except those which conveyed admiration, I retract. Be mine, and instead
of presuming to check in you the irresistible impulse of genius to the
first place in the head or the heart of the world, I teach myself to
encourage, to share, to exult in it. Do you know what a difference there
is between the absent one and the present one--between the distant image
against whom our doubts, our fears, our suspicions, raise up hosts of
imaginary giants, barriers of visionary walls, and the beloved face
before the sight of which the hosts are fled, the walls are vanished?
Isaura, we meet again. You know now from my own lips that I love you. I
think your lips will not deny that you love me. You say that you are
affianced to another. Tell the man frankly, honestly, that you mistook
your heart. It is not yours to give. Save yourself, save him, from a