t
given in parting to his desperate hand. I told him all my struggles, my
fears, my agonies,--dwelling most of all on the agony I suffered in
being compelled to deceive _him_.

Silently, immovably he heard me, never interrupting me by question or
explanation. He had seated himself on a sofa when I began, motioning me
to sit down by him, but I drew forward a low footstool and sat at his
feet, looking up with the earnestness of truth and the confidence of
innocence. Oh! he could not help but acquit me,--he could not help but
pity me. I had done him injustice in believing it possible for him to
condemn me for an act of filial obedience, involving so much
self-sacrifice and anguish. He would clasp me to his bosom,--he would
fold me in his arms,--he would call me his "own, darling Gabriella."

A pause,--a chilling pause succeeded the deep-drawn breath with which I
closed the confession. Cold, bitter cold, fell that silence on my
hoping, trembling, yet glowing heart. He was leaning on his elbow,--his
hand covered his brow.

"Ernest," at length I said, "you have heard my explanation. Am I, or am
I not, acquitted?"

He started as if from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and
lifted them above his head,--then springing up, he drew back from me, as
if I were a viper coiling at his feet.

"Your father!" he exclaimed with withering scorn. "Your father! The tale
is marvellously conceived and admirably related. Do you expect me to
believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his
unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old
enough to be your father,--and if ever profligacy was written on a human
countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away
with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood so wanton and
sacrilegious."

Should I live a thousand years, I never could forget the awful shock of
that moment, the whirlwind of passion that raged in my bosom. To be
accused of _falsehood_, and such a falsehood, by Ernest, after my
truthful, impassioned revelation;--it was what I could not, would not
bear. My heart seemed a boiling cauldron, whence the hot blood rushed in
burning streams to face, neck, and hands. My eyes flashed, my lips
quivered with indignation.

"Is it I, your wife, whom you accuse of falsehood?" I exclaimed; "dare
you repeat an accusation so vile?"

"Did you not _act_ a falsehood, when you so grossly deceived me, by
pretending to go on an err