"No, Henry; you know I have never repented."
"Ah, well I do," he said; "there could not have been such an angel calm round your whole being, had there been an unsettled principle within.
"Now, listen; when I turned my back upon Aston, as I believed, for ever, in my mad fury, I might have kept my purpose, had you turned upon me, in your beauty, and spurned me as I had spurned you; but that deep, beseeching look, that prostrate form clinging to the earth in its wretchedness, but, without a frown or reproach for me—I carried it away—that last glance of yours; it haunted me, and would not let me go, though I turned upon it in fury, and would have beaten it madly back.
"I need not tell you with what haste I exchanged my place in the English army, to one in a regiment starting for India; or, how I fought upon its burning plains, amongst the brave and the victorious. Even then, that last look pursued me. I studied with the learned, in Eastern lore. I was praised for my knowledge. Learning and enterprise were my pursuits—my society, the bold, and free-thinking; and my mind and imagination unfettered. But, what the world calls vice, that I knew not—there was something in the long forgotten, but not unfelt, impressions of childhood, and a mother's purity and love, that kept me back from that—and, while my charity was profuse, and my hand dealt bountifully to mankind, I proudly turned upon the professors of religion, and, as I held their weak points up to scandal, I bade them acknowledge the superiority of my moral code."
"Oh, Henry, say no more," cried Mabel.
"Do not shrink from me, because my confession is unreserved, but hear it to the very end. All this time, I forgot that pride and malice were in my heart, though I did sometimes feel what I have since seen expressed by Luther: 'An evil conscience is like a tormenting spirit, it is alarmed in the midst of outward prosperity.'
"So I continued till about a year since, when, one evening, I was at supper with a large party of friends, whose views corresponded with my own. With them there were some strangers, and amongst them, a strange old man, who regarded me attentively. I remember speaking more freely than I used, that night; and, conscious that I had done so, I left the party earlier than I had intended, partly because I was anxious to escape from the eyes of that strange man.
"The evening was delightful, and, instead of returning to my tent, I took a stroll in the moonlight. Much to my annoyance, I soon perceived that I was followed by the very man it had been my whim to avoid. Turning round, to confront him, our eyes met again, and I stood transfixed by the strange expression of his face.
"'I have heard,' he said, after looking at me for a while, 'hundreds of miles south, of your charity, and your munificence. I came to see their author, and am disappointed.'
"'Since you have done me so much honor, may I ask whom I address, sir?' I said, with overstrained politeness.