ferings of this night."

And I clung to him with an entireness of confidence, a fulness of
gratitude that swelled my heart almost to bursting. His face, beaming
with unclouded love and trust, seemed to me as the face of an angel. I
cared not for obloquy or shame, since he believed me true. I remembered
the words of the tender, the devoted Gertrude:--

"I have been with thee in thine hour
Of glory and of bliss,
Doubt not its memory's living power
To strengthen me in this."

But though my mind was buoyed up by the exaltation of my feelings, my
physical powers began to droop. I inherited something of my mother's
constitutional weakness; and, suddenly as the leaden weight falls when a
clock has run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of
lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child.
Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard,
tightening band.

It was several days before I left my bed, and more than a week before I
quitted my chamber. The recollection of Ernest's tender watchfulness
during these days of illness, even now suffuses my eyes with tears. Had
I been a dying infant he could not have hung over me with more anxious,
unslumbering care. Oh! whatever were his faults, his virtues redeemed
them all. Oh! the unfathomable depths of his love! I was then willing to
die, so fearful was I of passing out of this heavenly light of home joy
into the coldness of doubt, the gloom of suspicion.

Ernest, with all his proneness to exaggerate the importance of my
actions, did not do so in reference to this unhappy transaction.
Paragraphs were inserted in the papers, in which the initials of my name
were inserted in large capitals to attract the gazing eye. The meeting
in the Park, the jewels found in the possession of the forger, the
abrupt manner in which they were taken from the jeweller's shop, even
the gray shawl and green veil, were minutely described. Ernest had made
enemies by the haughty reserve of his manners and the exclusiveness of
his habits, and they stabbed him in secret where he was most vulnerable.

A brief sketch of the real circumstances and the causes which led to
them, was published in reply. It was written with manly boldness, but
guarded delicacy, and rescued my name from the fierce clutch of slander.
Then followed glowing eulogiums on the self-sacrificing daughter, the
young and beautiful wife, till Ernest's sensitive spirit