Once when they were alone, her softened heart would have
confessed to Herbert this painful conviction, but he was too happy
and too generous to permit her for a moment to indulge in such a
remorseful retrospect. All the error, he insisted, was his own; and he
had been fool enough to have wantonly forfeited a happiness which time
and experience had now taught him to appreciate.
'We married too young, Marmion,' said his wife.
'It shall be that then, love,' replied Herbert; 'but for all that I
have suffered. I would not have avoided my fate on the condition of
losing the exquisite present!'
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark, that Herbert avoided with
the most scrupulous vigilance the slightest allusion to any of those
peculiar opinions for which he was, unhappily, too celebrated. Musing
over the singular revolutions which had already occurred in his habits
and his feelings towards herself, Lady Annabel, indeed, did not
despair that his once self-sufficient soul might ultimately bow
to that blessed faith which to herself had ever proved so great a
support, and so exquisite a solace. It was, indeed, the inexpressible
hope that lingered at the bottom of her heart; and sometimes she even
indulged in the delightful fancy that his mild and penitent spirit
had, by the gracious mercy of Providence, been already touched by the
bright sunbeam of conviction.
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