Her soul, developed by affection, will elevate your own; it will influence your fortunes, exalt your destiny; you will become a great and prosperous man.

If, on the contrary, she fall to me, I know not what may be her lot; but I know that few can pass the ordeal, and hitherto no woman has survived the struggle." As Zicci spoke, his face became livid, and there was something in his voice that froze the warm blood of his listener.
"What is this mystery which surrounds you ?" exclaimed Glyndon, unable to repress his emotion.

"Are you, in truth, different from other men?
Have you passed the boundary of lawful knowledge?
Are you, as some declare, a sorcerer, only a--" "Hush!" interrupted Zicci, gently, and with a smile of singular but melancholy sweetness: "have you earned the right to ask me these questions?
The clays of torture and persecution are over; and a man may live as he pleases, and talk as it suits him, without fear of the stake and the rack.

Since I can defy persecution, pardon me if I do not succumb to curiosity." Glyndon blushed, and rose.

In spite of his love for Isabel, and his natural terror of such a rival, he felt himself irresistibly drawn towards the very man he had most cause to suspect and dread.