"Oh! my husband, do
not turn from me, do not hate me. I have none but thee."
He tried to withdraw his hand, but the words, the tone, unmanned him,
and throwing his arm round her, he clasped her convulsively to his
heart, and she felt his slow scalding tears fall one by one, as wrung
from the heart's innermost depths, upon her cheek.
For several minutes there was silence. The strong man's emotion is as
terrible to witness as terrible to feel. Marie was the first to regain
voice; and in low beseeching accents she implored him to listen to
her--to hear ere he condemned.
"Not thus," was his sole reply, as he tried to raise her from her
kneeling posture to the cushion by his side.
"Yes, thus my husband. I will not rise till thou say'st thou canst
forgive; wilt take the loving and the weak back to thy heart, if not
to love as thou hast loved, to strengthen and forgive. I have not
wronged thee. Were I false in word or thought I would not kneel to ask
forgiveness, but crawl to thy feet and die! If thou couldst but know
the many, many times I have longed to confess all; the agony to
receive thy fond caress, thy trusting confidence, and know myself
deceiving; the terror lest thou shouldst discover aught from other
than myself; oh! were it not for thy deep woe, I could bless this
moment, bidding me speak Truth once more!"
"And say thou hast never loved me? Wert true from duty, not from love?
Marie, can I bear this?"
"Yes--for I do love thee.
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