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224 my whole being, till I knew, that utterly decay and die away I must, unless pride let me go, and I, with the one little trumpet of a pen, blew my heart's shrillest blast, and called dear Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as my beseeching ink went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their mite, and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly tear-mingled ink—that last depth of my anguish—would never be visibly known to thee, but the tears would dry upon the page, and all be fair again, ere the so submerged-freighted letter should meet thine eye.'

'Ah, there thou wast deceived, poor Isabel,' cried Pierre impulsively; 'thy tears dried not fair, but dried red, almost like blood; and nothing so much moved my inmost soul as that tragic sight.'

'How? how? Pierre, my brother? Dried they red? Oh, horrible! enchantment! most undreamed of!'

'Nay, the ink—the ink! something chemic in it changed thy real tears to seeming blood;—only that, my sister.'

'Oh Pierre! thus wonderfully is it—seems to me—that our own hearts do not ever know the extremity of their own sufferings; sometimes we bleed blood, when we think it only water. Of our sufferings, as of our talents, others sometimes are the better judges. But stop me! force me backward to my story! Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;—no, not entirely all. Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor Bell was too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives then. The impulse in me called thee, not poor Bell. God called thee, Pierre, not poor Bell. Even now, when I have passed one night after seeing thee, and hearkening to all thy full love and graciousness; even now, I stand as one amazed, and feel not what may be