"I did."
"And discredit it? Blindness, madness, equal to my own in the days gone by! Edna Earl exists no longer; she was married a month ago. Here, read for yourself, or you will believe that I fabricate the whole."
She held a newspaper before his eyes and he saw a paragraph, marked with a circle of ink, "Marriage in Literary Circles": "The very reliable correspondent of the New York--writes from Rome that the Americans now in that city are on the qui vive concerning a marriage announced to take place on Thursday next at the residence of the American Minister. The very distinguished parties are Miss Edna Earl, the gifted and exceedingly popular young authoress, whose works have given her an enviable reputation, even on this side of the Atlantic, and Mr. Douglass G. Manning, the well-known and able editor of the--Magazine. The happy pair will start, immediately after the ceremony, on a tour through Greece and the Holy Land."
Mr. Murray opened the paper, glanced at the date, and his swarthy face paled as he put his hands over his eyes.
Mrs. Powell came nearer, and once more touched his hand; but, with a gesture of disgust, he pushed her aside.
"Away! Not a word--not one word more! You are not worthy to take my darling's name upon your lips! She may be Manning's wife--God forbid it!--or she may be in her grave. I have lost her, I know; but if I never see her dear angel face again in this world, it will be in consequence of my sins, and of yours; and with God's help I mean to live out the remainder of my days, so that at last I shall meet her in eternity! Leave me, Agnes! Do not make me forget the vows I have to-day taken upon myself, in the presence of the world and of my Maker. In future, keep out of my path, which will never cross yours; do not rouse the old hate toward you, which I am faithfully striving to overcome. The first time I went to the communion-table, after the lapse of all those dreary years of sin and desperation, I asked myself, 'Have I a right to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper?--can I face God and say I forgive Agnes Powell?' Finally, after a hard struggle, I said, from the depths of my heart, 'Even as I need and hope for forgiveness myself, I do fully forgive her.' Mark you, it was my injuries that I pardoned, your treachery that I forgave. But recollect there is a mournful truth in those words--THERE IS NO PARDON FOR DESECRATED IDEALS! Once, in the flush of my youth, I selected you as the beau ideal of beautiful, perfect womanhood; but you fell from that lofty pedestal where my ardent, boyish love set you for worship, and you dragged me down, down, almost beyond the pale of God's mercy! I forgive all my wrongs, but 'take you back, love you?' Ah! I can never love anyone, I never, even in my boyhood, loved you, as I love my pure darling, my own Edna! Her memory is all I have to cheer me in my lonely work. I do not believe that she is married; no, no, but she is in her grave. For many days past I have been oppressed by a horrible presentiment that she has gone to her rest in Christ--that the next steamer will bring me tidings of her death. Do not touch me, Agnes! If there be any truth in what you have to-day asserted so solemnly (though I can not believe it, for if you ridiculed and disliked me in my noble youth, how can you love the same man in the melancholy wreck of his hopes?), if there be a shadow of truth in your words, you are indeed to be pitied. Ah! you and I have learned at a terrible price the deceitfulness of riches, the hollowness of this world's pleasures; and both have writhed under the poisonous fangs that always dart from the dregs of the cup of sin, which you and I have drained. Experience must have taught you, also, what I was so long in learning--the utter hopelessness of peace for heart and soul save only through that religion, which so far subdues even my sinful, vindictive, satanic nature, that I can say to you--you who blasted all my earthly happiness--I forgive you my sufferings, and hope that God will give you that pardon and comfort which after awful conflicts I have found at last. Several times you have thrust yourself into my presence; but if there remains any womanly delicacy in your nature you will avoid me henceforth when I tell you that I loath the sight of one whose unwomanliness stabbed my trust in womanhood, and sunk me so low that I lost Edna Earl. Agnes, go yonder--where I have spent so many hours of agony--yonder to the graves of your victims as well as mine. Go down on your knees yonder, and pray for yourself, and may God help you!"