"Heaven help me, I cannot--I dare not! And--I am no longer capable of
being just!"
There was an accent almost of passion in her voice; she felt that so
greatly did she desire his deliverance, his justification, his return to
all which was his own--desired even his presence among them in her own
world--that she could no longer give him calm and unbiased judgment. He
heard, and the burning tide of a new joy rushed on him, checked almost
ere it was known, by the dread lest for her sake she should ever give
him so much pity that such pity became love.
He started to his feet and looked down imploringly into her eyes--a look
under which her own never quailed or drooped, but which they answered
with that same regard which she had given him when she had declared her
faith in his innocence.
"If I thought it possible you could ever care----"
She moved slightly from him; her face was very white still, and her
voice, though serenely sustained, shook as it answered him.
"If I could--believe me, I am not a woman who would bid you forsake your
honor to spare yourself or me. Let us speak no more of this. What can it
avail, except to make you suffer greater things? Follow the counsels of
your own conscience. You have been true to them hitherto; it is not for
me, or through me, that you shall ever be turned aside from them."
A bitter sigh broke from him as he heard.
"They are noble words. And yet it is so easy to utter, so hard to follow
them.
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