"Could I, for one instant,
forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is my
diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him!"
"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above
him- "forget yourself in the idea of another!"
Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him, with
the shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled
with hope and unselfish love, that all anguish seemed but an earthly
shadow and a dream. She touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor
shivered through his frame. At that moment, if report be
trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass,
and heard a tinkling sound, as if something had plunged into the
fountain. Be the truth as it might, it is certain that Roderick
Elliston sat up, like a man renewed, restored to his right mind, and
rescued from the fiend, which had so miserably overcome him in the
battlefield of his own breast.
"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with
nothing of the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long.
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