red to me
than my own. If I believed that you would ever play her false, if I
believed that a sinister motive led you to accomplish this end, as I
stand before you here, I would expose you as you are. I would lay bare
to her the secrets of the past. I would warn her to recall the love
which she has lavished on you, though the next hour should be my last,
in consequence. Her happiness shall never be wrecked while I have the
slightest power to guide it clear from danger."

With his impetuous spirit growing calm, as Minny became more excited,
Wilkins looked upon her, as she confronted him, with her soul in her
face, and his eyes kindled with the admiration his impulsive but
generous heart could not but feel.

"Most nobly spoken, Minny!" he exclaimed, earnestly, "and now, as Heaven
hears, let me speak what I feel is truth. Minny, there is a first love,
a wavering, flickering, effervescing sentiment of youthful hearts,
faithful and enduring in some instances, but not in mine, and this, God
forgive me, I gave to you. True, I believed then I could never change;
but the change came, with the exhalation of my heart's first passion,
and though I never hated, I found I could no longer love you. Our
marriage was illegal; I did not know it when it took place, but I
learned it afterwards, when my love had chilled, and with perhaps a
cruel, but a just hand, Minny, just to us both, I severed the cord which
had bound us so sweetly, and our parted hearts drifted out of each
other's sight, on the billows of life's ocean."

"Aye, Bernard, the one, a torn and shattered wreck, cast helpless on the
desolate shores of sorrow and despair; the other, strong and uninjured,
floating away to new and pleasant places, with only the shadow of a sad
memory following it."

"Too true, Minny, too true! alas for the restless impulses of my
misguided spirit. Alas for the trusting hopefulness of thine. But,
Minny, as I stand before you now, with my whole heart open to your
sight, I can most truly declare, that my love for Della is all that you
would have it. She is trusting and innocent. I will never blight the
one, or betray the other. I will hold her to my strong heart as some
tender flower, which needs protection from a wintry blast, and from the
world's cold breath; I will shield and guard, and cherish her with my
life. God help me so to do!"

"Amen, Bernard, amen!"

"Minny, are you satisfied?"

"Yes! my heart trusts you once again. Even more ho