cture them; I am woman. What they once were I might
blush for; what they are now, I could own without shame. But you, Mr.
Darrell,--you, in the hour of my uttermost anguish, when all my future
was laid desolate, and the world lay crushed at my feet--you--man,
chivalrous man!--you had for me no human compassion--you thrust me in
scorn from your doors--you saw in my woe nothing but my error--you sent
me forth, stripped of reputation, branded by your contempt, to famine or
to suicide. And you wonder that I feel less resentment against him who
wronged me than against you, who, knowing me wronged, only disdained
my grief. The answer is plain--the scorn of the man she only reverenced
leaves to a woman no memory to mitigate its bitterness and gall. The
wrongs inflicted by the man she loved may leave, what they have left to
me, an undying sense of a past existence--radiant, joyous, hopeful; of
a time when the earth seemed covered with blossoms, just ready to burst
into bloom; when the skies through their haze took the rose-hues as the
sun seemed about to rise. The memory that I once was happy, at least
then, I owe to him who injured and betrayed me. To you, when happiness
was lost to me forever, what do I owe? Tell me."

Struck by her words, more by her impressive manner, though not
recognising the plea by which the defendant thus raised herself into the
accuser, Darrell answered gently "Pardon me; this is no moment to revive
recollections of anger on my part; but reflect, I entreat you, and you
will feel that I was not too harsh. In the same position any other man
would not have been less severe."

"Any other man!" she exclaimed; "ay, possibly! but would the scorn of
any other man so have crushed self-esteem? The injuries of the wicked
do not sour us against the good; but the scoff of the good leaves us
malignant against virtue itself. Any other man! Tut! Genius is bound to
be indulgent. It should know human errors so well--has, with its large
luminous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to be human, that,
where others may scorn, genius should only pity." She paused a moment,
and then slowly resumed. "And pity was my due. Had you, or had any one
lofty as yourself in reputed honour, but said to me, 'Thou hast sinned,
thou must suffer; but sin itself needs compassion, and compassion
forbids thee to despair,' why, then, I might have been gentler to the
things of earth, and less steeled against the influences of Heaven than