dy said, to
what you before contemptuously set aside. This contention is unworthy of
both of us; and I confess that I am weary of replying to charges at once
unfounded and unkind."

Perdita tried to read his countenance, which he angrily averted. There was
so much of truth and nature in his resentment, that her doubts were
dispelled. Her countenance, which for years had not expressed a feeling
unallied to affection, became again radiant and satisfied. She found it
however no easy task to soften and reconcile Raymond. At first he refused
to stay to hear her. But she would not be put off; secure of his unaltered
love, she was willing to undertake any labour, use any entreaty, to dispel
his anger. She obtained an hearing, he sat in haughty silence, but he
listened. She first assured him of her boundless confidence; of this he
must be conscious, since but for that she would not seek to detain him. She
enumerated their years of happiness; she brought before him past scenes of
intimacy and happiness; she pictured their future life, she mentioned their
child--tears unbidden now filled her eyes. She tried to disperse them,
but they refused to be checked--her utterance was choaked. She had not
wept before. Raymond could not resist these signs of distress: he felt
perhaps somewhat ashamed of the part he acted of the injured man, he who
was in truth the injurer. And then he devoutly loved Perdita; the bend of
her head, her glossy ringlets, the turn of her form were to him subjects of
deep tenderness and admiration; as she spoke, her melodious tones entered
his soul; he soon softened towards her, comforting and caressing her, and
endeavouring to cheat himself into the belief that he had never wronged
her.

Raymond staggered forth from this scene, as a man might do, who had been
just put to the torture, and looked forward to when it would be again
inflicted. He had sinned against his own honour, by affirming, swearing to,
a direct falsehood; true this he had palmed on a woman, and it might
therefore be deemed less base--by others--not by him;--for whom had
he deceived?--his own trusting, devoted, affectionate Perdita, whose
generous belief galled him doubly, when he remembered the parade of
innocence with which it had been exacted. The mind of Raymond was not so
rough cast, nor had been so rudely handled, in the circumstance of life, as
to make him proof to these considerations--on the contrary, he was all
nerve; his spirit was as