on the
moor about mid-day, I will tell you all you seek to know; and perhaps you
will then see the necessity of discontinuing our intimacy--if, indeed,
you do not willingly resign me as one no longer worthy of regard.'

'I can safely answer no to that: you cannot have such grave confessions
to make--you must be trying my faith, Helen.'

'No, no, no,' she earnestly repeated--'I wish it were so! Thank heaven!'
she added, 'I have no great crime to confess; but I have more than you
will like to hear, or, perhaps, can readily excuse,--and more than I can
tell you now; so let me entreat you to leave me!'

'I will; but answer me this one question first;--do you love me?'

'I will not answer it!'

'Then I will conclude you do; and so good-night.'

She turned from me to hide the emotion she could not quite control; but I
took her hand and fervently kissed it.

'Gilbert, do leave me!' she cried, in a tone of such thrilling anguish
that I felt it would be cruel to disobey.

But I gave one look back before I closed the door, and saw her leaning
forward on the table, with her hands pressed against her eyes, sobbing
convulsively; yet I withdrew in silence. I felt that to obtrude my
consolations on her then would only serve to aggravate her sufferings.

To tell you all the questionings and conjectures--the fears, and hopes,
and wild emotions that jostled and chased each other through my mind as I
descended the hill, would almost fill a volume in itself. But before I
was half-way down, a sentiment of strong sympathy for her I had left
behind me had displaced all other feelings, and seemed imperatively to
draw me back: I began to think, 'Why am I hurrying so fast in this
direction? Can I find comfort or consolation--peace, certainty,
contentment, all--or anything that I want at home? and can I leave all
perturbation, sorrow, and anxiety behind me there?'

And I turned round to look at the old Hall. There was little besides the
chimneys visible above my contracted horizon. I walked back to get a
better view of it. When it rose in sight, I stood still a moment to
look, and then continued moving towards the gloomy object of attraction.
Something called me nearer--nearer still--and why not, pray? Might I not
find more benefit in the contemplation of that venerable pile with the
full moon in the cloudless heaven shining so calmly above it--with that
warm yellow lustre peculiar to an August night--and the mistress of my
so