"Oh! my husband, do not turn from me, do not hate me.

I have none but thee." He tried to withdraw his hand, but the words, the tone, unmanned him, and throwing his arm round her, he clasped her convulsively to his heart, and she felt his slow scalding tears fall one by one, as wrung from the heart's innermost depths, upon her cheek.
For several minutes there was silence.

The strong man's emotion is as terrible to witness as terrible to feel.

Marie was the first to regain voice; and in low beseeching accents she implored him to listen to her--to hear ere he condemned.
"Not thus," was his sole reply, as he tried to raise her from her kneeling posture to the cushion by his side.
"Yes, thus my husband.

I will not rise till thou say'st thou canst forgive; wilt take the loving and the weak back to thy heart, if not to love as thou hast loved, to strengthen and forgive.