y
future lot at your feet--when you, at the dictates of a worldly and cold
ambition (disguise the name as you will, the reality is the same),
threw me back on the solitary desert of life; when you rejected--forsook
me;--do you think that, although I loved you still, there was no
anger mingled with the love! We met again: but what years of wasted
existence--of dimmed hope--of deadened emotion--had passed over me
since then! And who had thus marked them? You! Do you wonder, then, that
something of human pride asked for human vengeance? Yes! I pined
for some triumph in my turn: I longed to try whether I was yet
forgotten--whether the heart which stung me had been stung also in the
wound that it inflicted. Was not this natural? Ask yourself, and blame
me if you can. But by degrees, as I gazed upon a beauty, and listened
to a voice, softer in their character than of old,--as I felt that you
would not deny me retribution, this selfish desire for revenge died
away, and, by degrees, all emotions were merged in one--unconquered,
unconquerable love. And can you blame me, if then--traitor to myself
as to you--I lingered on the spot?--if I had many struggles to endure
before I could resolve on the sacrifice I now make? Alas! it has cost me
much to be just. Can you blame me if at all times I could not control my
words and looks? Nay, even in our last meeting, when I was maddened
by the thought that we were about to part for ever--when we stood
alone--when no eye was near--when you clung to me in a delicious
timidity--when your breath was on my cheek--when the heaving of your
heart was heard by mine--when my hand touched that which could give me
all the world in itself--when my arm encircled that glorious and divine
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 ado