On Easter Sunday, Oswald and Corinne went to the Place of St. Peter's, to see the Pope, from the highest balcony of the church, call down Heaven's blessing on the earth: as he pronounced _Urbi et orbi_--on the city and the world--the people knelt, and our lovers felt all creeds alike. Religion links men with each other, unless self-love and fanaticism render it a cause of jealousy and hate. To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life.
Easter was over, yet Corinne spoke not of accomplishing her promise, by confiding her history to Nevil. Hurt by this silence, he one day told her that he intended paying a visit to their vaunted Naples. She understood his feelings, and proposed to make the journey with him; hoping to escape the avowal he expected from her, by giving him a proof of love which ought to be so satisfactory: besides, she thought that he would not take her with him, unless he designed to become hers for life. Her anxious looks supplicated a favorable reply. He could not resist, though surprised at the simplicity with which she made this offer; yet he hesitated for some time, till, seeing her bosom throb, and her eyes fill, he consented, without considering the importance of such a resolution. Corinne was overwhelmed with joy: at that moment she implicitly relied on his fidelity. The day was fixed, and the sweet perspective of travelling together banished every other idea. Not an arrangement they made for this purpose but was a source of pleasure. Happy mood! in which every detail of life derives a charm from some fond hope. Too soon comes the time when each hour fatigues; when each morning costs us an effort, to support our walking, and drag on the day to its close. As Nevil left Corinne, in order to prepare everything for their departure, the Count d'Erfeuil called on her, and learned her plan. "You cannot think of it!" he said: "make a tour with a man who has not even promised to be your husband! what will become of you if he turns deserter?"--"I should become," replied she, "but what I must be, in any situation, if he ceased to love me, the most unhappy person in the world."--"Yes; but if you had done nothing to compromise your name, you would still remain yourself."--"Myself!" she repeated, "when the best feelings of my soul were blighted, and my heart broken?"--"The public would not guess that; and with a little caution you might preserve its opinion."--"And why humor that opinion, unless it were to gain one merit the more in the eyes of love?"--"We may cease to love," answered the Count, "but we do not cease to live in need of society."--"If I could think," she exclaimed, "that the day would come when Oswald's affections were no longer mine all, I should have ceased to love already. What is love, if it can calculate and provide against its own decay? No; like devotion, it dissipates all other interests, and delights in an entire sacrifice of self."--"And can a person of your mind turn her brain with such nonsense?" asked d'Erfeuil: "it is certainly to the advantage of us men, that women think as you do; but _you_ must not lose your superiority; it ought to be in some way useful."--"Useful!" cried Corinne; "Oh! I shall owe it enough, if it teaches me the better to appreciate the tender generosity of Nevil."--"Nevil is like other men," rejoined the Count; "he will return to his country, resume his career there, and be reasonable at last; you will expose your reputation most imprudently by going to Naples with him."--"I know not his intentions," she answered; "and, perhaps, it would have been better to have reflected ere I loved him; but now--what matters one sacrifice more? Does not my life depend on his love? Indeed, I feel some solace in leaving myself without one resource; there never is any for wounded hearts, but the world may sometimes think that such remains; and I love to know that even in this respect my misfortune would be complete, if Nevil abandoned me."--"And does he know how far you commit yourself for his sake?"--"No; I have taken great pains, as he is but imperfectly acquainted with the customs of this country, to exaggerate the liberty it permits. Give me your word that you will say nothing to him on this head. I wish him to be ever free; he cannot constitute my felicity by giving up any portion of his own. His love is the flower of my life; and neither his delicacy nor his goodness could reanimate it, if once faded. I conjure you, then, dear Count, leave me to my fate.