From habit, I still bear about me the weapons I trust and pray I may never have occasion to use.

But to return .-- I have offended you--I have incurred your hatred--why?
What are my sins ?" "Do you ask the cause ?" said Walter, speaking between his ground teeth.
"Have you not traversed my views--blighted my hopes--charmed away from me the affections which were more to me than the world, and driven me to wander from my home with a crushed spirit, and a cheerless heart.

Are these no cause for hate ?" "Have I done this ?" said Aram, recoiling, and evidently and powerfully affected.

"Have I so injured you ?--It is true! I know it--I perceive it--I read your heart; and--bear witness Heaven!--I felt for the wound that I, but with no guilty hand, inflict upon you.

Yet be just:--ask yourself, have I done aught that you, in my case, would have left undone?
Have I been insolent in triumph, or haughty in success?
if so, hate me, nay, spurn me now." Walter turned his head irresolutely away.
"If it please you, that I accuse myself, in that I, a man seared and lone at heart, presumed to come within the pale of human affections;--that I exposed myself to cross another's better and brighter hopes, or dared to soften my fate with the tender and endearing ties that are meet alone for a more genial and youthful nature;--if it please you that I accuse and curse myself for this--that I yielded to it with pain and with self-reproach--that I shall think hereafter of what I unconsciously cost you with remorse--then be consoled!" "It is enough," said Walter; "let us part.