estion
you upon another."

Again a fierce convulsion wrung the lip and distorted the perfect
features of Isora. She remained silent for some moments, and then
murmured, "My oath forbids me even that single answer: tempt me no more;
now, and forever, I am mute upon this subject."

Perhaps some slight and momentary anger, or doubt, or suspicion,
betrayed itself upon my countenance; for Isora, after looking upon me
long and mournfully, said, in a quiet but melancholy tone, "I see your
thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them--it is natural that you
should think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds,--one too placed
under such circumstances of humiliation and distrust. I have lived
long in your country: I have seen, for the last few months, much of its
inhabitants; I have studied too the works which profess to unfold its
national and peculiar character: I know that you have a distrust of
the people of other climates; I know that you are cautious and full of
suspicious vigilance, even in your commerce with each other; I know, too
[and Isora's heart swelled visibly as she spoke], that poverty itself,
in the eyes of your commercial countrymen, is a crime, and that they
rarely feel confidence or place faith in those who are unhappy;--why,
Count Devereux, why should I require more of you than of the rest of
your nation? Why should you think better of the penniless and friendless
girl, the degraded exile, the victim of doubt,--which is so often the
disguise of guilt,--than any other, any one even among my own people,
would think of one so mercilessly deprived of all the decent and
appropriate barriers by which a maiden should be surrounded? No--no:
leave me as you found me; leave my poor father where you see him; any
place will do for us to die in."

"Isora!" I said, clasping her in my arms, "you do not know me yet: had
I found you in prosperity, and in the world's honour; had I wooed you
in your father's halls, and girt around with the friends and kinsmen of
your race,--I might have pressed for more than you will now tell me; I
might have indulged suspicion where I perceived mystery, and I might not
have loved as I love you now! Now, Isora, in misfortune, in destitution,
I place without reserve my whole heart--its trust, its zeal, its
devotion--in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or sunshine, I am
yours, wholly and forever. Reject me if you will, I will return to you
again; and never, never--save from my own eyes o