with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one
moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth,
justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his
sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the
last time, and that my heart was broken.
I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that
there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done
me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that seemed
to me as idle; but all his words were precious, and all my soul was in
his hand. When, at that moment, the sound of wheels upon the gravel
came, and the sound of laughter and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me
in his arms and held me closely. Another moment, the parting was over,
and I was kneeling by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME.
Into my chamber brightly
Came the early sun's good-morrow;
On my restless bed, unsightly,
I sat up in my sorrow.
_Faust._
It is an amazing thing, the strength and power of pride. Pride, and the
law of self-respect and self-preservation in our being, is the force
that holds us in our course. When we reflect upon it, how few of all the
myriads fly out from it and are lost. That I ate my meals; that I
dressed myself with care; that I took walks and drives: that I did not
avoid my companions, and listened patiently to what they chose to say:
these were the evidences of that centripetal law within that was keeping
me from destruction. It would be difficult to imagine a person more
unhappy. Undisciplined and unfortified by the knowledge that
disappointment is an integral part of all lives, there had suddenly come
upon me a disappointment the most total. It covered everything; there
was not a flicker of hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go
to make myself another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we
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