mean of manners. Scourge you? Ah, I fear you
well deserve it;--and yet if I could, I would put to scourging that
word, 'mean,' that has just escaped from out of my petulent lips,
as sometimes a froward, disobedient child runs into danger; breaking
away from out of the nurse's arms. But you should not have played
the bold intruder, and joined in these vain vigils;--nay, begone,
or I must, myself, withdraw. I do entreat you, stay no longer; come
some other time,--but go to-night; make no excuse for staying, or
you may yet compel me to be angry with you. Indeed, I fear that I
am too forgiving. Go, I pardon you,--but go at once, or I may yet
repent to have condoned what it, in truth, were hard to justify."

"Heaven pardons heavier sins," observed the stranger.

"Yes, when its pardon is sought for;" was rejoined; "but I pardon
you without your craving it; and, remember, Heaven's pardon is not
granted to us simply for the asking; neither do we receive it
because our hearts are penitent; but for the sake of Him who died
for us upon the cross; hence you are now forgiven by me, not for
your prayers' sake, nor for your regret, but rather because
beforehand, the night's offence has been cancelled by the morning's
favor. For the rest, retire, sir: what you have heard, you have
heard. You have heard my words, yet give no heed to them. If I
to-night have walked forth in my sleep, and dreamed on this
verandah;--why, then, it was but a dream. Let it be thus esteemed,
and so we part. Good night."

"Stay!" exclaimed the stranger, as, smiling with ineffable sweetness,
and deeply curtsying, she drew backwards towards the window: "Stay;
how can those part whom destiny hath joined; how be divided whom
their fates make one? Stay, lady, and let love, young love, plead
his own cause. Oh, I would yet charm you with my tongue, even as
your own detected tongue has just declared that this morning I
charmed you with my deed. Stay. If, in truth, you did admire,
what, at the moment of its execution, I thought nothing of, and
value now only as it has relation to yourself, hear my appeal."

"What does this mean?" she asked, startled at his earnestness: "I
do not know you; go, oh, go; I say again, I do not know you, sir."

"I never knew myself till now," he cried with bitter pathos.

"I say, I do not know you; you do not know _me;_" she reiterated.

"Know me to be irrevocably yours;" rejoined the stranger, "for you
have bound my heart in such fa