Seized with an overmastering repentance that brought back with a rush all
his tenderness, James sprang to her, lifted her in his arms, laid her on
the sofa, and lavished caresses upon her, until at length she recovered
sufficiently to know where she lay--in the false paradise of his arms, with
him kneeling over her in a passion of regret, the first passion he had ever
felt or manifested toward her, pouring into her ear words of incoherent
dismay--which, taking shape as she revived, soon became promises and vows.
Thereupon the knowledge that he had committed himself, and the conviction
that he was henceforth bound to one course in regard to her, wherein he
seemed to himself incapable of falsehood, unhappily freed him from the
self-restraint then most imperative upon him, and his trust in his own
honour became the last loop of the snare about to entangle his and her very
life. At the moment when a genuine love would have hastened to surround
the woman with bulwarks of safety, he ceased to regard himself as his
sister's keeper.
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