Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/184

182 with its state than it was possible this lower one could ever henceforward be to him. The time was when, had such an idea entered her mind, it would have been torture indescribable and agony the most intense; but then, subdued as was the usual warmth of her temperament, an awful suspension seemed to hold her feelings in control.

Never had she breathed a reproach to Philimore for his late apparent unkindness towards her, yet her heart having tacitly done so, she then in the same silent language accused herself of having listened to its dictates. Overwhelmed by a sense of inferiority, while before one whose presence seemed almost supernatural, she not only acquitted him, but was active also in justifying him.

"Edmund," said she, with streaming eyes and a voice scarcely audible, "tell me how or in what way I have offended you."

"Never, my Oriana!" he exclaimed, deeply touched on his part, "never! you have never offended me, nor aught diminished in my estimation from the first moment I beheld you."

He paused; he essayed to explain himself. A few broken sentences was all he uttered, and it was all she required. Those few words spoke volumes to satisfy her, and to compose her; she blessed her Philimore—she invoked heavenly blessings upon his head. The shortness of his breathing, the acute anguish he was enduring, seemed to render explanation doubly painful, and she entreated him to say no