But when he turned to himself, he viewed his situation with horror,
and yielded almost to despair. What, what could she think of the impure
libertine who dared to adore her? If ever time could bleach his own soul
and conciliate hers, what, what was to become of Aphrodite? Was his new
career to commence by a new crime? Was he to desert this creature of his
affections, and break a heart which beat only for him? It seemed that
the only compensation he could offer for a life which had achieved
no good would be to establish the felicity of the only being whose
happiness seemed in his power. Yet what a prospect! If before he had
trembled, now----
But his harrowed mind and exhausted body no longer allowed him even
anxiety. Weak, yet excited, his senses fled; and when Arundel Dacre
returned in the evening he found his friend delirious. He sat by his bed
for hours. Suddenly the Duke speaks. Arundel Dacre rises: he leans over
the sufferer's couch.
Ah! why turns the face of the listener so pale, and why gleam those eyes
with terrible fire? The perspiration courses down his clear but sallow
cheek: he throws his dark and clustering curls aside, and passes his
hand over his damp brow, as if to ask whether he, too, had lost his
senses from this fray.
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