er from destruction, however low and
steeped in sin he may be, cannot be condemned. If I am, I care not; but
oh, Ernest, as your wife, let me not suffer reproach,--for your sake, my
husband, far more than mine."

As thus I pleaded with all the eloquence and earnestness of my nature,
with my hands clasped in his, their firm, close, yet gentle fold grew
firmer, closer still; and the cloud passing away from his countenance,
it became luminous as I gazed.

"You are right,--you are true," said he, "my dear, my noble Gabriella.
Every shadow of a doubt vanishes before the testimony of your unselfish
heart. Why did I not see this subject in the same clear, just light?
Because my eyes are too often blinded by the mists of passion. Yes! you
have pointed out the only way of extrication. The story of your mother's
wrongs will not necessarily be exposed; and if it is, the sacred aegis of
your filial love will guard it from desecration. We shall not remain
here long. Spring will soon return; and in the sweet quietude of rural
life, we will forget the tumultuous scenes of this modern Babel. You
will not wish to return?"

"No! never, never. That unhappy man! what will be his doom?"

"Probably life-long imprisonment. Had I known who the offender was, I
would have prayed the winds and waves to bear him to Icelandic seas,
rather than have had his crime published to the world. It is, however,
the retribution of heaven; and we must submit."

"It seems so strange," said I, "to think of him alive, whose existence
so long seemed to me a blank. When I was a child, I used to indulge in
wild dreams about my unknown parent. I pictured him as one of the gods
of mythology, veiling his divinity in flesh for the love of the fairest
of the daughters of men. The mystery that wrapped his name was, to my
imagination, like the cloud mantling the noonday sun. With such views of
my lineage, which, though they became subdued as I grew older, were
still exaggerated and romantic,--think of the awful plunge into the
disgraceful truth. It seems to me that I should have died on my mother's
grave, had not your arms of love raised me,--had you not breathed into
my ear words that called me back from the cold grasp of death itself. In
the brightness of the future I forgot the gloom of the past. Oh! had I
supposed that he lived,--that he would come to bring on me public shame
and sorrow, and through me, on you, my husband, I never would have
exposed you to the suf