I was ignorant of all your goodness, when we parted in the hermit's cave.

But the spirit of an angel like yourself, Lady Helen, will whisper to you all her widowed husband's thanks." He pressed her hand fervently between his, and rising, left the room.
Helen looked on with an immovable eye, in which the heroic vow of her soul spoke in every beam; but as he arose, even then she felt its frailty, for her spirit seemed leaving her; and as he disappeared from the door, her world seemed shut from her eyes.

Not to think of him was impossible; how to think of him was in her own power.

Her heart felt as if suddenly made a desert.

But heroism was there.