Pray be assured that I believe in your better nature, and that I accept your letter in the spirit in which you have written it." He read my reply, and suddenly looked at me.
Never had I seen his beautiful eyes so brightly soft, so irresistibly tender, as they appeared now.

He held out his hand to me.

It is one of my small merits to be (in the popular phrase) as good as my word.

I took his hand; well knowing that the action committed me to accepting his friendship.
In relating the events which form this narrative, I look back at the chain, as I add to it link by link--sometimes with surprise, sometimes with interest, and sometimes with the discovery that I have omitted a circumstance which it is necessary to replace.

But I search my memory in vain, while I dwell on the lines that I have just written, for a recollection of some attendant event which might have warned me of the peril towards which I was advancing blindfold.