But the child, the infant, the soul that looks to mine for its shield!--magician, I wrest from thee that soul! Pardon, pardon, if my words wrong thee.

See, I fall on my knees to write the rest! "Why did I never recoil before from thy mysterious lore; why did the very strangeness of thine unearthly life only fascinate me with a delightful fear?
Because, if thou wert sorcerer or angel-demon, there was no peril to other but myself: and none to me, for my love was my heavenliest part; and my ignorance in all things, except the art to love thee, repelled every thought that was not bright and glorious as thine image to my eyes.

But NOW there is another! Look! why does it watch me thus,--why that never-sleeping, earnest, rebuking gaze?
Have thy spells encompassed it already?
Hast thou marked it, cruel one, for the terrors of thy unutterable art?
Do not madden me,--do not madden me!--unbind the spell! "Hark! the oars without! They come,--they come, to bear me from thee! I look round, and methinks that I see thee everywhere.

Thou speakest to me from every shadow, from every star.

There, by the casement, thy lips last pressed mine; there, there by that threshold didst thou turn again, and thy smile seemed so trustingly to confide in me! Zanoni--husband!--I will stay! I cannot part from thee! No, no! I will go to the room where thy dear voice, with its gentle music, assuaged the pangs of travail!--where, heard through the thrilling darkness, it first whispered to my ear, 'Viola, thou art a mother!' A mother!--yes, I rise from my knees,--I AM a mother! They come! I am firm; farewell!" Yes; thus suddenly, thus cruelly, whether in the delirium of blind and unreasoning superstition, or in the resolve of that conviction which springs from duty, the being for whom he had resigned so much of empire and of glory forsook Zanoni.