When you snatched my picture from me a moment ago I saw a glistening tear of sympathy in your eye; but what are these?"
"So cruel! so ungenerous! so unfair!" I said, still pressing my hands tightly over my eyes. "How can I ever forgive you?"
With softer murmur than the last he repeated the words,
"'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in."
"Astounding presumption that!" I said, now giving him the benefit of my full gaze—"to speak of pardon before making a confession of your guilt! But before I give you time even for that, the remaining mysteries which still hang around your tale of woe shall be cleared up. Please to inform the court how the original of your purloined sketch could have been the object of years of devotion, when it has been only four weeks to-day since you laid your mortal eyes on her?"
"Ah! you may well say mortal; but you know the soul too has its visual organs. I saw and loved and worshiped my ideal in those years, and sought her too—how unceasingly!—and I said,
Only for the real will I with the ideal part:
Another shall not even tempt my heart.
When I saw her just four weeks since, I knew her,
And my heart responded as, with unseen wings,