Speak to me but one word of love--or, if it must be, wrath .-- but not, not such accents of despair!" Her father struggled to reply; but the conflux of strong emotion was too powerful, and Marie sprung up to support him as he fell.

She had often seen him insensible before, when there appeared no cause for such attacks; but was it strange that at such a moment she should feel that _she_ had caused it ?--that her sin perchance had killed her father; he might never wake more to say he forgave, he blessed her,--or that in those agonized moments of suspense she vowed, if he might but speak again, that his will should be hers, even did it demand the annihilation of every former treasured thought! And the vow seemed heard.

Gradually and, it appeared, painfully life returned.

His first action was to clasp her convulsively to his heart; his next, to put her gently yet firmly from him, and bury his face in his hands, and weep.
No sight is more terrible, even to an indifferent spectator, than to behold tears wrung from the eyes of man--and to his child it was indeed torture.

But she controlled the choking anguish--calmly and firmly she spoke, and gradually the paroxysm subsided.
"That I have sinned in loving a stranger thus, I have long felt," she said; "and had I been aware of the nature of these feelings, they should never have gained ascendency.