timid, trembling yes, forced from pallid, unwilling lips, which
rings in the ears of God and men like a discord--like the snap of a
harp-string. The bells chimed melodiously. No man heard the yes at
which our poor hearts rebelled! We alone heard and understood! You
were noble, prince; you had been forced to swear a falsehood before
the altar; but in the evening, when we were alone in our apartment,
you told me the frank and honest truth. State policy united us; we
did not and could never love each other! You were amiable enough to
ask me to be your friend--your sister; and to give me an immediate
proof of a brother's confidence, you confessed to me that, with all
the ardor and ecstasy of your youthful heart, you had loved a woman
who betrayed you, and thus extinguished forever all power to love.
I, my prince, could not follow your frank example, and give a like
confidence. I had nothing to relate. I had not loved! I loved you
not! I was therefore grateful when you asked no love from me. You
only asked that, with calm indifference, we should remain side by
side, and greet each other, before the world, with the empty titles
of wife and husband. I accepted this proposal joyfully, to remain an
object of absolute indifference to you, and to regard you in the
same light. I cannot, therefore, comprehend why you now reproach
me."

"Yes! yes! I said and did all that," said Prince Henry, pale and
trembling with emotion. "I was a madman! More than that, I was a
blasphemer! Love is as God--holy, invisible, and eternal; and he who
does not believe in her immortality, her omnipresence, is like the
heathen, who has faith only in his gods of wood and stone, and whose
dull eyes cannot behold the invisible glory of the Godhead. My heart
had at that time received its first wound, and because it bled and
pained me fearfully, I believed it to be dead, and I covered it up