“The promise!” exclaimed the girl, while her pale cheeks flushed, and her eye lightened as if repelling a derogatory insinuation. No, no; it was indeed a sad reality, although the act was villanous and putting her hand into her bosom, she drew forth a wedding-ring, secured by a black ribbon. “There is the token that I was a lawful wife; and there, also, a memorial that I was a—” She paused.
“What?” exclaimed the fosterer.
“A worthless daughter. Worthless! worse far;—a parricide! Yes, yes; I murdered him. My misconduct broke his heart. My ingratitude quenched his broken spirit. I did not drug him to death; but I poisoned his happiness, and sent him to the grave. Am I not, then, a murderess?”
She flung herself wildly upon the fallen tree, and sobbed convulsively. “Be calm;” said Mark Antony, pressing her hand; “I have given you pain; but Heaven knows I would not, if—”
“No, no,” exclaimed the girl, “you meant no harm; but where guilt abides, the conscience takes alarm. For a sad, sad, twelvemonth your’s is the only heart that has warmed to me; your’s the only ear to which I would confide my story. Hear me; and then say whether the crime or the retribution has been the greater. I am calm; but it seems to me a melancholy pleasure to disclose to a being who will sympathize, how much I have sinned, and how much I have suffered.”’ She rose,—walked a few paces to a rock from which the mountain streamlet dropped into a basin which itself had formed; and having bathed her aching temples in the water, returned, and, to a most attentive listener, she thus detailed her history.
CHAPTER XI. THE STORY OF THE WANDERING ACTRESS
“What will not woman, when she loves?
“Yet lost, alas! who can restore her?