Its quiet, saddened accents were
expressive of an almost divine resignation and sorrow; they seemed to be
attuned to a mysterious and untraceable harmony with the melancholy
stillness of the night-landscape. As she now stood looking up with
pale, calm countenance, and gentle, tearless eyes, into the sky whose
moonlight brightness shone softly over her form, the Virgin watching the
approach of her angel messenger could hardly have been adorned with a
more pure and simple loveliness, than now dwelt over the features of
Numerian's forsaken child.
No longer master of his agitation; filled with awe, grief, and despair,
as he looked on the victim of his heartless impatience; Hermanric bowed
himself at the girl's feet, and, in the passionate utterance of real
remorse, offered up his supplications for pardon and his assurances of
protection and love. All that the reader has already learned--the
bitter self-upbraidings of his evening, the sorrowful wanderings of his
night, the mysterious attraction that led him to the solitary house, his
joy at once more discovering his lost charge--all these confessions he
now poured forth in the simple yet powerful eloquence of strong emotion
and true regret.
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