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Updated: May 5, 2025
Isora's death, and the confused story of the document given me by Oswald, Montreuil had interpreted to Gerald according to the interpretation of the world; namely, he had thrown the suspicion upon Oswald, as a common villain, who had taken advantage of my credulity about the will, introduced himself into the house on that pretence, attempted the robbery of the most valuable articles therein, which, indeed, he had succeeded in abstracting, and who, on my awaking and contesting with him and his accomplice, had, in self-defence, inflicted the wounds which had ended in my delirium and Isora's death.
The moment Isora's anxiety for me led her across the threshold of my house it became necessary for her honour that our wedding should take place immediately on my recovery: so far I was decided on the measure; now for the method.
Although scarcely four and twenty when I entered the Czar's service, my habits of intimacy with men much older; my customary gravity, reserve, and thought; my freedom, since Isora's death, from youthful levity or excess; my early entrance into the world; and a countenance prematurely marked with the lines of reflection and sobered by its hue, made me appear considerably older than I was.
Was the heaven the tender, blue, loving heaven, in whose far regions I had dreamed was Isora's home, and had, therefore, grown better and happier when I gazed upon it to be nothing but cloud and air? and had the love which had seemed so immortal, and so springing from that which had not blent itself with mortality, been but a gross lamp fed only by the properties of a brute nature, and placed in a dark cell of clay, to glimmer, to burn, and to expire with the frail walls which it had illumined?
There was nothing in Isora's tale which the reader has not already learned or conjectured. She had left her Andalusian home in her early childhood, but she remembered it well, and lingeringly dwelt over it in description. It was evident that little, in our colder and less genial isle, had attracted her sympathy, or wound itself into her affection.
That seemed likely enough to others; it is the tools that work, not the instigator, the bravo, not the employer; but I, who saw in him not only the robber, but that fearful rival who had long threatened Isora that my bridals should be stained with blood, was somewhat staggered by the undeniable proofs of his absence from the scene of that night; and I was still more bewildered in conjecture by remembering that, so far as their disguises and my own hurried and confused observation could allow me to judge, the person of neither villain, still less that of Isora's murderer, corresponded with the proportions and height of Gerald.
To use the fine image in the "Arcadia," it was "when the sun, like a noble heart, began to show his greatest countenance in his lowest estate," that I arrived at Isora's door. I had written to her once, to announce my uncle's death and the day of my return: but I had not mentioned in my letter my reverse of fortunes; I reserved that communication till it could be softened by our meeting.
"But, Morton, you do not know me," said Isora, proudly, and her face, as she spoke, was set, and even stern: "I am only the coward when I think of you; a word a look of mine can abash this man; or, if it could not, I am never without a weapon to defend myself, or or " Isora's voice, before firm and collected, now faltered, and a deep blush flowed over the marble paleness of her face.
Would it have been possible for me, man of pleasure and of the world as I was thought to be, no, my good uncle, though it went to my heart to wound thee so secretly, it would not have been possible for me, even if I had not coined my whole nature into love, even if Isora had not been to me what one smile of Isora's really was, it would not have been possible to have sacrificed so noble and so divine a heart, and made myself, in that sacrifice, a wretch forever.
I sprang to my feet and asked for Isora; a low murmur caught my ear: I turned and beheld a dark form stretched on the bed, and surrounded, like myself, by gazers and menials; I tottered towards that bed, my bridal bed, with a fierce gesture motioned the crowd away; I heard my name breathed audibly; the next moment I was by Isora's side.
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