half
disclosing the truth, rendered me utterly impatient of the delay
imposed; and eagerly breaking the seal, I devoured rather than read its
contents.

"Accursed madness of recollection!" pursued Wacousta, again striking
his brow violently with his hand,--"why is it that I ever feel thus
unmanned while recurring to those letters? Oh! Clara de Haldimar, never
did woman pen to man such declarations of tenderness and attachment as
that too dear but faithless letter of your mother contained. Words of
fire, emanating from the guilelessness of innocence, glowed in every
line; and yet every sentence breathed an utter unconsciousness of the
effect those words were likely to produce. Mad, wild, intoxicated, I
read the letter but half through; and, as it fell from my trembling
hand, my eye turned, beaming with the fires of a thousand emotions,
upon that of the worshipped writer. That glance was more than her own
could meet. A new consciousness seemed to be stirred up in her soul.
Her eye dropped beneath its long and silken fringe--her cheek became
crimson--her bosom heaved--and, all confidingness, she sank her head
upon my chest, which heaved scarcely less wildly than her own.

"Had I been a cold-blooded villain--a selfish and remorseless seducer,"
continued Wacousta with vehemence--"what was to have prevented my
triumph at that moment? But I came not to blight the flower that had
long been nurtured, though unseen, with the life-blood of my own being.
Whatever I may be NOW, I was THEN the soul of disinterestedness and
honour; and had she reposed on the bosom of her own father, that
devoted and unresisting girl could not have been pressed there with
holier tenderness. But even to this there was too soon a term. The hour
of parting at length arrived, announced, as before, by the small bell
of her father, and I again tore myself from her arms; not, however,
without first securing the treasured letter, and obtaining a promise
from your mother that I should receive another at each succeeding
visit."

CHAPTER X.

"Nearly a month passed away in this manner; and at each interview our
affection seemed to increase. The days of our meeting were ever days of
pure and unalloyed happiness; while the alternate ones of absence were,
on my part, occupied chiefly with reading the glowing letters given me
at each parting by your mother. Of all these, however, there was not
one so impassioned, so natural, so every way devoted, as the fir