hands as cold
as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In
moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but
while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire
preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely,
exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the
dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration,
and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.

"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his
arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle
and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind.
Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it
will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,--I
care not for the jewels,--but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the
'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"

As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if
striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid
flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast
me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies
of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my
soul,--I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of
his eyes grew dim,--dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me
all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before
that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name,
involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered
for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to
the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name
engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the
forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor
importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in association with
his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,--I knew that my
father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that
he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a
living death.

My father! the man whom my mother had loved. The remembrance of this
love, so long-enduring, so much forgiving, hung like a glory round him.
It was the halo of a saint encircling the brow of the ma