e Grove, I turned away
and walked on; but he followed and kept his horse at my side: it was
evident he intended to be my companion all the way.

'Well! I don't much care. If you want another rebuff, take it--and
welcome,' was my inward remark. 'Now, sir, what next?'

This question, though unspoken, was not long unanswered; after a few
passing observations upon indifferent subjects, he began in solemn tones
the following appeal to my humanity:--

'It will be four years next April since I first saw you, Mrs.
Huntingdon--you may have forgotten the circumstance, but I never can. I
admired you then most deeply, but I dared not love you. In the following
autumn I saw so much of your perfections that I could not fail to love
you, though I dared not show it. For upwards of three years I have
endured a perfect martyrdom. From the anguish of suppressed emotions,
intense and fruitless longings, silent sorrow, crushed hopes, and
trampled affections, I have suffered more than I can tell, or you
imagine--and you were the cause of it, and not altogether the innocent
cause. My youth is wasting away; my prospects are darkened; my life is a
desolate blank; I have no rest day or night: I am become a burden to
myself and others, and you might save me by a word--a glance, and will
not do it--is this right?'

'In the first place, I don't believe you,' answered I; 'in the second, if
you will be such a fool, I can't hinder it.'

'If you affect,' replied he, earnestly, 'to regard as folly the best, the
strongest, the most godlike impulses of our nature, I don't believe you.
I know you are not the heartless, icy being you pretend to be--you had a
heart once, and gave it to your husband. When you found him utterly
unworthy of the treasure, you reclaimed it; and you will not pretend that
you loved that sensual, earthly-minded profligate so deeply, so
devotedly, that you can never love another? I know that there are
feelings in your nature that have never yet been called forth; I know,
too, that in your present neglected lonely state you are and must be
miserable. You have it in your power to raise two human beings from a
state of actual suffering to such unspeakable beatitude as only generous,
noble, self-forgetting love can give (for you can love me if you will);
you may tell me that you scorn and detest me, but, since you have set me
the example of plain speaking, I will answer that I do not believe you.
But you will not do it! y