, and prayer. Though
reason condemned his conduct, and mourned over his infatuation, the
holiness of his purpose shone around him and sanctified him from
ridicule and contempt. There was something pure, spiritual, almost
unearthly in his countenance; but suffering and languor cast a shadow
over it, that appealed to human sympathy.

If he would only move, only turn towards me! The Israelites, at the foot
of the cloud-girdled mount, whose fiery zone they were forbidden to
pass, could scarcely have felt more awe and dread than I did, strange
and weak as it may seem. I moved nearer, still more near, till my shadow
fell upon him. Then he started and rose to his feet, and looked upon me,
like one suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.

"Gabriella!" he exclaimed.

Oh! I cannot describe the inexpressible softness, tenderness, and music
of his accent. It was as if the whole heart were melting into that
single word. All my preconceived resolutions vanished, all coldness,
alienation, and constraint. "I had found him whom my soul loved." My
arms were twined around him,--I was clasped to his bosom with the most
passionate emotion, and the hearts so violently wrenched asunder once
more throbbed against each other.

"Ernest, beloved Ernest!"

"Temptress, sorceress!" he suddenly exclaimed, pushing me from him with
frenzied gesture,--"you have come to destroy my soul,--I have broken my
solemn vow,--I have incurred the vengeance of Almighty God. Peace was
flowing over me like a river, but now all the waves and billows of
passion are gone over me. I sink,--I perish, and you, you,--Gabriella,
it is you who plunge me in the black abyss of perjury and guilt."

I was terrified at the dark despair that settled on his brow. I feared
his reason was forsaking him, and that I, in my rashness, had
accelerated his doom.

"Do not, do not talk so dreadfully, Ernest. Forgive me, if I have done
wrong in coming. Forgive me, if for one moment I recalled you to the
tenderness you have so long abjured. But mine is the offence, and mine
be the sorrow. Do not, I pray you, blame yourself so cruelly for my
transgression, if it indeed be one. Oh, Ernest, how pale, how wretched
you look! You are killing yourself and me,--your mother too. We cannot
live in this state of alienation. The time of your vow is only half
expired,--only twenty days are past, and they seem twenty years of woe.
Dear Ernest, you are tempting God by this. One tear of penitence, one
lo