I was so busy and so happy, that I had let three weeks pass over my head without seeing Eugenia.  I dreamed of her at last, and thought she upbraided me; and the next day, full of my dream, as soon as breakfast was over, I recommended the young ladies to the care of Talbot, and, mounting my horse, rode over to see Eugenia.  She received me kindly, but she had suffered in her health, and was much out of spirits.  I inquired the reason, and she burst into tears.  “I shall be better, Frank,” said she, “when all is over, but I must suffer now; and I suffer the more acutely from a conviction that I am only paying the penalty of my own crime.  Perhaps,” continued she, “had I never departed from virtue, I might at this moment have held in your heart the envied place of Miss Somerville; but as the righteous decrees of Providence having provided punishment to tread fast in the footsteps of guilt, I am now expiating my faults, and I have a presentiment that although the struggle is bitter, it will soon be over.  God’s will be done; and may you, my dear Frank, have many, many happy years in the society of one you are bound to love before the unhappy Eugenia.”

Here she sank on a sofa, and again wept bitterly.

“I feel,” said she, “now, but it is too late—­I feel that I have acted wrongly in quitting Bordeaux.  There I was loved and respected; and if not happy, at least I was composed.  Too much dependence on my resolution, and the vanity of supposing myself superior in magnanimity to the rest of my sex, induced me to trust myself in your society.  Dearly, alas! have I paid for it.  My only chance of victory over myself was flight from you, after I had given the irrevocable sentence; by not doing so, the poison has again found its way to my heart.  I feel that I love you; that I cannot have you; and that death, very shortly, must terminate my intolerable sufferings.”

This affecting address pierced me to the soul; and now the consequences of my guilt and duplicity rushed upon me like a torrent through a bursting flood-gate.  I would have resigned Emily, I would have fled with Eugenia to some distant country, and buried our sorrows in each other’s bosoms; and, in a state of irrepressible emotion, I proposed this step to her.

“What do I hear, my beloved?” said she (starting up with horror from the couch on which she was sitting, with her face between her knees), “what! is it you that would resign home, friends, character, the possession of a virtuous woman, all, for the polluted smiles of an ——­”

“Hold! hold! my Eugenia,” said I; “do not, I beseech you, shock my ears with an epithet which you do not deserve!  Mine, mine, is all the guilt; forget me, and you will still be happy.”

She looked at me, then at her sweet boy, who was playing on the carpet—­but she made no answer; and then a flood of tears succeeded.