your
feet; I tell it to you only because I am obliged--because, after all,
love is worth telling, even if it comes to nothing. I am not going to
appeal to your generosity," continued the young man, kneeling down at
the table, not by way of kneeling to Lucy, but by way of bringing
himself on a level with her, where she sat with her head bent down on
her low chair, "or to ask you to bind yourself to a man who has
nothing in the world but love to offer you; but after what has been
for years, after all the hours I have spent here, I cannot--part--I
cannot let you go--without a word--"

And here he stopped short. He had not asked anything, so that Lucy,
even had she been able, had nothing to answer; and as for the young
lover himself, he seemed to have come to the limit of his eloquence.
He kept waiting for a moment, gazing at her in breathless expectation
of a response for which his own words had left no room. Then he rose
in an indescribable tumult of disappointment and mortification--unable
to conclude that all was over, unable to keep silence, yet not knowing
what to say.

"I have been obliged to close all the doors of advancement upon
myself," said the Curate, with a little bitterness; "I don't know if
you understand me. At this moment I have to deny myself the dearest
privilege of existence. Don't mistake me, Lucy," he said, after
another pause, coming back to her with humility, "I don't venture to
say that you would have accepted anything I had to offer; but this I
mean, that to have a home for you now--to have a life for you ready to
be laid at your feet, whether you would have had it or not;--what
right have I to speak of such delights?" cried the young man. "It does
not matter to you; and as for me, I have patience--patience to console
myself with--"

Poor Lucy, though she was on the verge of tears, which nothing but the
most passionate self-restraint could have kept in, could not help a
passing sensation of amusement at these words. "Not too much of that
either," she said, softly, with a tremulous smile. "But patience
carries the lilies of the saints," said Lucy, with a touch of the sweet
asceticism which had once been so charming to the young Anglican. It
brought him back like a spell to the common ground on which they used to
meet; it brought him back also to his former position on his knee,
which was embarrassing to Lucy, though she had not the heart to draw
back, nor even to withdraw her hand, which someho