How drearily the gray arid sand
stretches away to the sky-line! Who knows how far it may be to the next
oasis? Let us rest yet another hour by the fountain.
From any deliberate intention to do wrong Cecil was as pure as any
canonized saint in the roll of virgins and martyrs; but if she had been
a voluptuary as elaborate as La Pompadour, she could not have felt more
keenly that her love had increased tenfold in intensity since it became
a crime to indulge it. The passionate energy that had slumbered so long
in her temperament was thoroughly roused at last, and would make itself
heard clamorously enough to drown the still small voice, that said
"beware and forbear." Her principles were good, but they were not strong
enough to hold their own. O pride of the Tresilyans! that had tempted to
sin so many of that haughty house, when you might have saved its fairest
descendant, was it the time to falter and fail? She looked up piteously
in her great extremity; there was a prayer for help in her eyes, but
between them and heaven was interposed a stern bronze face, not a line
of it softening.
At length the faint, broken whisper came--"God help me! I _can not_ say
it.
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