...[M]y inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose. I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life.

Have you heard from his lordship lately?” I asked.

“Oh no! About six months ago I had indeed one little note, but I gave it to Macara by mistake, and really I don’t know what became of it afterwards.”

“Did Macara express hot sentiment of incipient jealousy on thus accidentally learning that you had not entirely dropped all correspondence with the noble Earl?”

“Yes. He said he thought the note was very civilly expressed, and wished me to answer it in terms equally polite.”

“Good! And you did so?”

“Of course. I penned an elegant billet on a sheet of rose-tinted note-paper, and sealed it with a pretty green seal bearing the device of twin hearts consumed by the same flame. Some misunderstanding must have occurred, though, for in two or three days afterwards I received it back unopened and carefully enclosed in a cover. The direction was not in his lordship’s hand-writing: Macara told me he thought it was the Countess’s.

Who told you I was called Carl David?" "A little bird, Monsieur." "Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing when needful.

But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself?

I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.

Yes Mrs Reed, to you i owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but i ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did while rendering my heart strings, you thought you were only uprooting your bad propensities.