"Oh! sir," she cried, "you cannot understand; but this is the happiest moment of my life!"
"Madam?" he exclaimed, interrogatively and with consummate art.
"It is not necessary for you to know why," she answered; "but on my knees I thank you."
He lifted her up. "What can it mean? I implore you to tell me," he said.
"Do not ask me!" she replied. "I cannot tell you now! My heart is too full."
"But does this mean that I have nothing to regret and that you have forgiven me?"
"It does. For it is against God only you have sinned! As for myself, I bless you from the bottom of my heart!"
She gave him her hand. He took it in his own and held it, looking first at her and then at David with an expression of such surprise as to deceive his accomplice scarcely less than his victim. Young, inexperienced, innocent in this sin at least, she stood between them—helpless.
It is one thing for a woman deliberately to renounce her marriage vows to taste the sweets of forbidden pleasure, but quite another for a heart so loyal to duty, to be betrayed into crime by an ingenuity worthy of devils.
Child of misfortune that she was, victim of a series of untoward and fatal circumstances, she had reason all her life to regret her credulity; but never to reproach herself for wrong intentions. Her heart often betrayed her; but her soul was never corrupted. She ought to have been more careful—alas, yes, she ought—but she meant no sin.