such as a pure and innocent woman ought to feel;
but with the bashful confusion the veteran _roue_ delights to behold?
Who was this man, whose presence caused you such overpowering emotion,
and who exchanged with you glances of such mysterious meaning? Tell me,
for I _will_ know."

Oh that I had dared to answer, "He is my father. Covered with shame and
humiliation, I acknowledge my parentage, which makes me so unworthy to
bear your unsullied name. My darkened spirit would hide itself behind a
cloud, to escape the villain whom nature disowns and reason abhors."
But, unknowing the contents of the mysterious note, unknowing the
consequences to himself which might result from its disclosure,
remembering the injunction of my dying mother, to be to him a guardian
angel in the hour of danger,--I could not save myself from blame by
revealing the truth. I could not stain my lips with a falsehood.

"I never saw that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think
modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he
usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been
insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender,
instead of me,--the innocent sufferer. It would be more manly."

"Would you have had me make the theatre a scene of strife and
bloodshed?" he exclaimed.

"No! neither would I have you bring warring passions into the peaceful
bosom of your own home."

"Is this you?" he cried, looking me sternly and sorrowfully in the face.
"Is this the gentle and tender Gabriella, who speaks in such a tone of
bitterness and scorn?"

"I did not know that I spoke bitterly!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Ernest, you
have roused in me a spirit of resistance I tremble to feel! You madden
me by your reproaches! You wrong me by your suspicions! I meant to be
gentle and forbearing; but the worm will writhe under the foot that
grinds it into dust. Alas! how little we know ourselves!"

With anguish that cannot be described, I clasped my hands tightly over
my heart, that ached with intolerable pangs. I had lost him,--lost his
love,--lost his confidence. Had I seen him in his grave, I could
scarcely have felt more utter desolation.

"I told you what I was," he cried, the pale severity of his countenance
changing to the most stormy agitation. "I told you that the cloud which
hung over my cradle would follow me to the grave; that suspicion and
jealousy were the twin-born phantoms of my soul. Why, then