ly--so hope
whispered--prosper in my love.

Some time afterwards you mentioned your suspicions of Gerald; I did not
corroborate, but I did not seek to destroy them. "They already hate
each other," I said; "can the hate be greater? meanwhile, let it divert
suspicion from me!" Gerald knew of the agency of the real Barnard,
though he did not know that I had assumed the name of that person. When
you taxed him with his knowledge of the man, he was naturally confused.
You interpreted that confusion into the fact of being your rival, while
in truth it arose from his belief that you had possessed yourself of
his political schemes. Montreuil, who had lurked chiefly in the islet
opposite "the Castle Cave," had returned to France on the same day
that Alvarez repaired to London. Previous to this, we had held some
conferences together upon my love. At first he had opposed and reasoned
with it; but, startled and astonished by the intensity with which it
possessed me, he gave way to my vehemence at last.

I have said that I had adopted his advice in one instance. The fact of
having received his advice,--the advice of one so pious, so free from
human passion, so devoted to one object, which appeared to him the cause
of Religion; advice, too, in a love so fiery and overwhelming, that fact
made me think myself less criminal than I had done before. He advised me
yet further. "Do not seek Isora," he said, "till some time has elapsed;
till her new-born love for your brother has died away; till the
impression of fear you have caused in her is somewhat effaced; till time
and absence, too, have done their work in the mind of Morton, and you
will no longer have for your rival one who is not only a brother, but a
man of a fierce, resolute, and unrelenting temper."

I yielded to this advice: partly because it promised so fair; partly
because I was not systematically vicious, and I wished, if possible,
to do away with our rivalship; and principally, because I knew, in the
meanwhile, that if I was deprived of her presence, so also were you; and
jealousy with me was a far more intolerable and engrossing passion than
the very love from which it sprang. So time passed on: you affected to
have conquered your attachment; you affected to take pleasure in levity
and the idlest pursuits of worldly men. I saw deeper into your heart;
for the moment I entertained the passion of love in my own breast, my
eyes became gifted with a second vision to penetrate t