p from her hand.

Of course a man can not strike a woman! He may tread her in the mire; he
may clasp her and then scorn her; he may kiss her close, and then dash
her from him into a dung-heap, but he must not strike her--that would be
unmanly! Oh! grace itself is the rage of the pitiful Othello to the
forbearance of many a self-contained, cold-blooded, self-careful slave,
that thinks himself a gentleman! Had not Faber been even then full of
his own precious self, had he yielded to her prayer or to his own wrath,
how many hours of agony would have been saved them both!--"What! would
you have had him really strike her?" I would have had him do _any thing_
rather than choose himself and reject his wife: make of it what you
will. Had he struck once, had he seen the purple streak rise in the
snow, that instant his pride-frozen heart would have melted into a
torrent of grief; he would have flung himself on the floor beside her,
and in an agony of pity over her and horror at his own sacrilege, would
have clasped her to his bosom, and baptized her in the tears of remorse
and repentance; from that moment they would have been married indeed.

When she felt him take the whip, the poor lady's heart gave a great
heave of hope; then her flesh quivered with fear. She closed her teeth
hard, to welcome the blow without a cry. Would he give her many stripes?
Then the last should be welcome as the first. Would it spoil her skin?
What matter if it was his own hand that did it!

A brief delay--long to her! then the hiss, as it seemed, of the coming
blow! But instead of the pang she awaited, the sharp ring of breaking
glass followed: he had thrown the whip through the window into the
garden. The same moment he dragged his feet rudely from her embrace, and
left the room. The devil and the gentleman had conquered. He had spared
her, not in love, but in scorn. She gave one great cry of utter loss,
and lay senseless.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE BOTTOMLESS POOL.

She came to herself in the gray dawn. She was cold as ice--cold to the
very heart, but she did not feel the cold: there was nothing in her to
compare it against; her very being was frozen. The man who had given her
life had thrown her from him. He cared less for her than for the
tortured dog. She was an outcast, defiled and miserable. Alas! alas!
this was what came of speaking the truth--of making confession! The
cruel scripture had wrought its own fulfillment, made a mock of her,