Confession - Page 39/274

Julia bore my reproaches until I was ashamed of them. Her submission

stung me, and I loved then too ardently not to arrive in time at

justice, and to make atonement. Would I had made it sooner! When I

had finished all my reproaches and complainings, she answered all

by telling me that the affair with young Roberts had been just

closed, and she hoped finally, by her unqualified rejection of

his suit, even though backed by all her father's solicitations,

complaints, nay, threats and anger. How ungenerous and unmanly,

after this statement had been made, appeared all the bitter eludings

in which I had indulged! I need not say what efforts I made to

atone for my precipitation and injustice; and how easily I found

forgiveness from one who knew not how to harbor unkindness--and

if she even had the feeling in her bosom, entertained it as one

entertains his deadliest foe, and expelled it as soon as its real

character was discovered.