e, and I am far from
regarding you as a stranger."

This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling
enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should
immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly
than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and
principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me
severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.

"Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you
leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?"

He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.

"When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
India?"

"You said I could not unless I married you."

"And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?"

Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into
the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in
their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?

"No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution."

The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet
crash down.

"Once more, why this refusal?" he asked.

"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply,
because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
You are killing me now."

His lips and cheeks turned white--quite white.

"_I should kill you_--_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought
not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an
unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem
inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even
until seventy-and-seven times."

I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from
his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious
surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.

"Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to
conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you."

A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on
the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the
steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.

"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I
have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, I have n