The recollection of this little trait, so trifling, yet so touching,
made him weep even with wildness. The tears poured down his cheeks in
torrents, he sobbed convulsively, his very heart seemed to burst. For
some minutes he leant over the balustrade in a paroxysm of grief.
He looked up. The convent hill rose before him, bright in the moon;
beneath was his garden; around him the humble roofs that he made
happy. It was not without an effort that he recalled the locality,
that he remembered he was at Arqua. And who was sleeping within the
house? Not his wife, Annabel was far away with their daughter. The
vision of his whole life passed before him. Study and strife, and fame
and love; the pride of the philosopher, the rapture of the poet,
the blaze of eloquence, the clash of arms, the vows of passion, the
execration and the applause of millions; both once alike welcome to
his indomitable soul! And what had they borne to him? Misery. He
called up the image of his wife, young, beautiful, and noble, with a
mind capable of comprehending his loftiest and his finest moods, with
a soul of matchless purity, and a temper whose winning tenderness had
only been equalled by her elevated sense of self-respect; a woman that
might have figured in the days of chivalry, soft enough to be his
slave, but too proud to be his victim.
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