spring! Is youth a plea for wickedness? And was I old? I, who, in spite
of all I have suffered, feel the vital blood yet boiling as to a
furnace; but cut off for ever by her crime from fame and glory--and from
a soldier in his proud career, covered with honour in the eyes of all my
countrymen, changed in an hour into an outlawed and nameless slave. My
name has been borne by a race of heroes--the blood in my veins has
flowed down a long line of illustrious ancestors--and here am I now--a
hidden disguised hypocrite--dwelling among peasants--and afraid--ay,
afraid, because ashamed, to lift my eyes freely from the ground even
among the solitudes of the mountains, lest some wandering stranger
should recognise me, and see the brand of ignominy her hand and
his--accursed both--burnt in upon my brow. She forsook this bosom--but
tell me if it was in disgust with these my scars?"

And as he bared it, distractedly, that noble chest was seen indeed
disfigured with many a gash--on which a wife might well have rested her
head with gratitude not less devout because of a lofty pride mingling
with life-deep affection. But the burst of passion was gone by--and,
covering his face with his hands, he wept like a child.

"Oh! cruel--cruel was her conduct to me; yet what has mine been to
her--for so many years! I could not tear her image from my memory--not
an hour has it ceased to haunt me; since I came among these mountains,
her ghost is for ever at my side. I have striven to drive it away with
curses, but still there is the phantom. Sometimes--beautiful as on our
marriage-day--all in purest white--adorned with flowers--it wreathes its
arms around my neck--and offers its mouth to my kisses--and then all at
once is changed into a leering wretch, retaining a likeness of my
bride--then into a corpse. And perhaps she is dead--dead of cold and
hunger: she whom I cherished in all luxury--whose delicate frame seemed
to bring round itself all the purest air and sweetest sunshine--she may
have expired in the very mire--and her body been huddled into some hole
called a pauper's grave. And I have suffered all this to happen to her!
Or have I suffered her to become one of the miserable multitude who
support hated and hateful life by prostitution? Black was her crime; yet
hardly did she deserve to be one of that howling crew--she whose voice
was once so sweet, her eyes so pure, and her soul so innocent--for up to
the hour I parted with her weeping, no e