shape--0 Heaven! can you blame me--can you wonder if I was transported
beyond myself;--if conscience, reason, all were forgotten, and I
thought--felt--lived--but for the moment and for you? No, you will feel
for the weakness of nature; you will not judge me harshly.

"And why should you rob me of the remembrance of that brief moment--that
wild embrace? How often shall I recall it!--How often when the light step
of her to whom I return glides around me, shall I cheat myself, and think
it yours; when I feel her breath at night, shall I not start--and dream it
comes from your lips? and in returning her unconscious caress, let me
fancy it is you whispers me the assurances of unutterable love! Forgive
me, Constance, my yet adored Constance, whom I shall never see more, for
these wild words--this momentary weakness. Farewell! Whatever becomes of
me, may God give you all His blessings!

"One word more--no, I will not close this letter yet! You remember that
you once gave me a flower--years ago. I have preserved its leaves to this
day; but I will give no indulgence to a folly that will now wrong you, and
be unworthy of myself. I will send you back those leaves: let them plead
for me, as the memories of former days. I must break off now, for I can
literally write no more. I must go forth and recover my self-command.
And oh! may she whom I seek to-morrow--whose unsuspecting heart admonished
by temptation, I will watch over, guide, and shield far, far more
zealously than I have yet done--never know what it has cost me, not to
abandon and betray her."

And Lucilla read over every word of this letter! How wholly impossible it
is for language to express the agony, the hopeless, irremediable despair
that deepened within her as she proceeded to the end! Everything that
life had, or could ever have had for her, of common peace or joy, was