Page:Glenarvon (Volume 2).djvu/251

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CHAPTER XXV.

Lady Avondale sent the portrait to Miss St. Clare, and vainly endeavoured to restore her to her uncle's protection. She again spoke of her to Glenarvon.

"Cannot I yet save her?" she said; "Cannot I take her home, and sooth her mind, and bring her back to virtue and to peace?" "Never more," he replied: "it is past: her heart is perverted." "Is there no recall from such perversion?" "None, none, my friend." His countenance, whilst he spoke, assumed much of bitterness. "Oh there is no recall from guilty love. The very nature of it precludes amendment, as these beautiful, these emphatic lines express, written by the Scottish bard, who had felt their truth:"—*