Page:Glenarvon (Volume 3).djvu/135

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cold dissembling hypocrite may feel, be compared to the unutterable agony of such a meeting? Conscience itself must shrink beneath the torture of every glance. There is the record of crime—there, in every altered lineament of that well known face. How pale the withered cheek—how faint the smile that tries to make light and conceal the evil under which the soul is writhing.

And could Calantha see it, and yet live? Could she behold him kind, compassionating, mournful, and yet survive it? No—no frenzy of despair, no racking pains of ill requited love, no, not all that sentiment and romance can paint or fancy, were ever equal to that moment. Before severity, she had not bowed—before contempt, she had not shed one tear—against every menace, she felt hardened; but, in the presence of that pale and altered brow, she sunk at once. With grave but gentle earnestness, he raised her from the earth. She