within Zenobia's reach.«
    »In all this,« I observed, »there would have been nothing to satisfy her
heart.«
    »Her heart!« answered Westervelt, contemptuously. »That troublesome organ
(as she had hitherto found it) would have been kept in its due place and degree,
and have had all the gratification it could fairly claim. She would soon have
established a control over it. Love had failed her, you say! Had it never failed
her before? Yet she survived it, and loved again - possibly, not once alone, nor
twice either. And now to drown herself for yonder dreamy philanthropist!«
    »Who are you,« I exclaimed, indignantly, »that dare to speak thus of the
dead? You seem to intend a eulogy, yet leave out whatever was noblest in her,
and blacken, while you mean to praise. I have long considered you as Zenobia's
evil fate. Your sentiments confirm me in the idea, but leave me still ignorant
as to the mode in which you have influenced her life. The connection may have
been indissoluble, except by death. Then, indeed - always in the hope of God's
infinite mercy - I cannot deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in yonder grave!«
    »No matter what I was to her,« he answered, gloomily, yet without actual
emotion. »She is now beyond my reach. Had she lived, and hearkened to my
counsels, we might have served each other well. But there Zenobia lies, in
yonder pit, with the dull earth over her. Twenty years of a brilliant lifetime
thrown away for a mere woman's whim!«
    Heaven deal with Westervelt according to his nature and deserts! - that is
to say, annihilate him. He was altogether earthy, worldly, made for time and its
gross objects, and incapable - except by a sort of dim reflection, caught from
other minds - of so much as one spiritual idea. Whatever stain Zenobia had, was
caught from him; nor does it seldom happen that a character of admirable
qualities loses its better life, because the atmosphere, that should sustain it,
is rendered poisonous by such breath as this man mingled with Zenobia's. Yet his
reflections possessed their share of truth. It was a woful thought, that a woman
of Zenobia's diversified capacity should have fancied herself irretrievably
defeated on the broad battle-field of life, and with no refuge, save to fall on
her own sword, merely because Love had gone against her. It is