Page:An Unfinished Song.djvu/85

80 its impression. A woman may be cruel in a moment when anger controls her, but she cannot resist the pleading of love, that melts her heart when nothing else will. This is the essential difference between woman and man, it is here that the Creator has marked her as being distinctly different from his stronger creature. His distressed mien, his passionate exhortations, these had spoken to me of a deep love, and the thought of that went to my heart; I felt the pang of his disappointment as keenly as he felt it himself. Now that he was gone I reflected on the whole painful scene with the deepest emotion; I began to doubt my own self. The very words that had before excited my anger began now to move me to pity. Was it then true after all? Had I deceived him? Had I made him think I loved him when in reality I did not? Had I taken his future into my hands, meting out to him either happiness or misery as it pleased me best?

I now became overpowered by remorse, I felt the deepest pity for him. My mind became filed with gloom and I sat speechless, motionless, brooding over the things I had heard or said. My sister came and