"I would have spoken; he fiercely interrupted me: 'I know what you would say--that she gave herself to you--that she offered this oblation of a whole existence--but I tell you, if one grain of justice or of generosity had been within your coward heart, you would have flung yourself over that precipice, and so absolved her from her vow, rather than let her immolate herself to a doom so horrible; for you know not, yourself, what is that doom! Yes, poor wretch,' he added, more gently, 'you knew not what you did; but I know, and now will I tell. I, who have watched over the soul of Aletheia Randolph for well-nigh twenty years, know well of what fire it is made; I tell you I have long foreknown that there was a capacity of love in her which is most awful, and which would most infallibly work her utter woe, except its ardent immensity found a perpetual outlet in the many ties which weave themselves around a happy wife and mother. And now, oh! was there none to have mercy on her, and save her noble heart and life from such destruction; this soul of flame, fathomless as the deep, burning and pure as the spotless noonday sky, hath gone forth to fasten itself upon a desolating, barren, mournful love, where, hungering forever after happiness, and never fed, it will be driven to insanity or death! Yes, I tell you, it will be so; my departing spirit is almost on my lips, and my words must be few, but they are words of fearful truth. I know her, and I know that thus it will be; one day's separation from you, whom the world will never admit to be her own--one cloud upon your brow, which she has not the power to disperse, will work in her a torment that will sap her noble mind, and will make her, haply, the lunatic, and _you_--_you_, descendant of the maniac Sydneys, her keeper! Oh, what had she done to you that you should hate her so? Oh, wherefore have you cursed her, my innocent child, my only daughter?'
"I fell on my knees; I gasped for breath; Lilias, I felt that every word he said was true, that all would come to pass as he foretold; for he spoke with the prophetic truth of the dying; he saw my utter agony. Suddenly he lifted himself up in the bed, and the movement broke the bandage on his head, whence the blood streamed suddenly with a destructive violence; he heeded it not, but grasped my arm with the last energy of life.