“When we married, I was a wild, passionate youth, penniless, almost friendless; but I loved you, God only knows how dearly!”
“And, oh heavens! how I loved you!”
“Had I been older or wiser in this world’s wisdom, it would have been an act of treachery when I won you to that private marriage; but I was an enthusiast, possessed of some genius, and more wild hopes. Perhaps in the arrogance of these untried feelings, I held your father’s wealth in too much scorn. Certain it is, I never craved it, never wished for it.”
“I know that, Herman; yet it was this very wealth that drove us apart.”
“I asked you to go away, and share my fate——”
“I could not; remember how young I was. An only child, loving my father, whose forgiveness you refused to ask—loving you better than my own life, but afraid to follow the hopeless path you were resolved to tread. Why did you leave me then? Was I angry—was I unreasonable in that struggle, so hard upon a young girl, pampered, as I had been; did I say things which were altogether beyond forgiveness?”
“If I left you in anger, bitter and keen as it was, my great love conquered it, before I was half across the ocean,” said Ross. “But what came after? My letters were unanswered.”
“I never received them. Some one, my father, I think, kept them back. Oh, Herman! you will never know how I waited, how I longed for one line!”
“Elizabeth, give me your hands. On your life, on your honor—as you hope for salvation, did you never hear from me, never see a line of my writing after I left you?”
“As God shall be merciful to me, I never did!”