d anticipated. I was not allowed to
meet his daughter again privately. I was to endeavour by degrees to
heal the wounds which our separation caused, to eradicate the
affection, which I had so rashly kindled, by my good sense and
demeanour, and thereby to make myself worthy to regain the confidence
and love of the prince.

"Suddenly I felt as if the veil had fallen from my eyes," continued
Francis, "indeed, I may say, that by this interview, I was quite a
changed being. Truth and reality had now, at length, with victorious
power, asserted their ascendancy over me. Many periods of life may be
compared to a vivid fantastic dream; we awake to sober consciousness,
but still feel the reality of the vision.

"But, ah! my friend, this truth created a hell within me. My mind
yielded to the noble father in every thing. He was right in the
fullest sense of the word. If I admired Juliet, and recognised her
worth, if she was my friend, and I sufficiently important to elevate
her mind, what had that to do with our passion and my efforts to
possess her? With this conviction I was now penetrated, and the
feeling exerted a benign influence over me. But how different were her
feelings! When such changes occur, women usually suffer from the
consuming fire of passion. What letters did I receive from her, when I
had communicated to her my resolution and the advice that we must
submit to necessity! I almost repeated the words which I had heard
from her beautiful lips when I urged my ardent attachment. She now
listened in a spirit different from that which harassed her formerly;
deaf to all advice, unsusceptible to every kindness, inaccessible to
conviction, she only listened to the wild suggestions of her ardent
affection. My reason seemed to her cowardice, my resignation baseness.
She alone was exclusively to be considered in the question that
agitated my heart. In short, she now played the same part that I had
done formerly. Looking back upon my former conduct with repentance and
shame, I hoped I should be able, by calm perseverance, to bring her
gradually to the same conviction. But she frustrated my hopes. It was
singular that I was made unhappy by possessing, in the fullest measure,
what I had formerly considered my supreme felicity; and that my most
fervent desire extended no further than to be able to restore her to
tranquillity, nay, even to produce coldness and indifference.

"So whimsical are the gods frequentl