hether my suspicions
were correct, and in case of their turning out so, feeling utterly unfit
to endure the sight of Lawless's happiness, determined immediately to
start for the Continent. Prank, who taxing me with my wretched looks,
elicited from me an avowal of the truth, told me Lawless was about to
make you an offer; Coleman (probably in jest, but it chimed in too well
with my own fears for me to dream of doubting him) that it had been
accepted. The rest you know. And now, Fanny," he continued, his voice
again trembling from the excess of his anxiety, "if you feel that you
can never bring yourself to look upon me in any other light than as a
brother, I will adhere to my determination of leaving England, and
trust to time to reconcile me to my fate; but if, by waiting months,
nay years, I may hope one day to call you my own, gladly will I do
so--gladly will I submit to any conditions you may impose. My happiness
is in your hands. Tell me, dear Fanny, must I go abroad to-morrow?"

And what do you suppose she told him, reader? That he must go? Miss
Martineau would have highly approved of her doing so; so would the late
Poor-law Commissioners, and so would many a modern Draco, who, with
~377~~ the life-blood that should have gone to warm his own stony
heart, scribbles a code to crush the kindly affections and genial
home-sympathies of his fellow-men. But Fanny was no female philosopher;
she was only a pure, true-hearted, trustful, loving woman; and so she
gave him to understand that he need not set out on his travels, thereby
losing a fine opportunity of "regenerating society," and vindicating
the dignity of her sex. And this was not all she told him either; for,
having by his generous frankness won her confidence, he succeeded
in gaining from her the secret of her heart--a secret which, an hour
before, she would have braved death in its most horrible form rather
than reveal. And then her happy lover learned how her affection for
him, springing up in the pleasant days of childhood, had grown with her
growth, and strengthened with her strength; until it became a deep and
all-absorbing passion--the great reality of her spirit-life; for love
such as hers, outstripping the bounds of time, links itself even with
our hopes beyond the grave;--how, when he lay stretched upon the bed of
suffering, oscillating between life and death, the bitter anguish that
the thought of separation occasioned her, enlightened her as to the true