Purity and he are too sincerely one for
personal vanity to blind his eyes to the deformity of the passion you
describe. And mean as I am when compared with him, I must aver that,
were a married woman to love me, and seek to excuse her frailty, I
should see alone her contempt of the principles which are the only
impregnable bulwarks of innocence, and shrink from her as I would from
pollution."
"Then you declare yourself my enemy, Edwin?"
"No," replied he; "I speak to you as a son; but if you are determined
to avow to Sir William Wallace what you have revealed to me, I shall
not even observe on what has passed, but leave you, unhappy lady, to
the pangs I would have spared you."
He rose. Lady Mar wrung her hands in a paroxysm of conviction that
what he said was true.
"Then, Edwin, I must despair?"
He looked at her with pity.
"Could you abhor the dereliction that your soul has thus made from
duty, and leave him, whom your unwidowed wishes now pursue, to seek
you; then I should say that you might be happy; for penitence appeases
God, and shall it not find grace with man?"
"Blessed Edwin," cried she, falling on his neck, and kissing him;
"whisper but my penitence to Wallace; teach him to think I hate myself.
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