rting
us, but we might love as friends all our days, and perhaps with more
satisfaction than we should in the station we were now in, as things
might happen; that he durst say, I could not apprehend anything from
him as to betraying a secret, which could not but be the destruction of
us both, if it came out; that he had but one question to ask of me that
could lie in the way of it, and if that question was answered in the
negative, he could not but think still it was the only step I could
take.

I guessed at his question presently, namely, whether I was sure I was
not with child? As to that, I told him he need not be concerned about
it, for I was not with child. 'Why, then, my dear,' says he, 'we have
no time to talk further now. Consider of it, and think closely about
it; I cannot but be of the opinion still, that it will be the best
course you can take.' And with this he took his leave, and the more
hastily too, his mother and sisters ringing at the gate, just at the
moment that he had risen up to go.

He left me in the utmost confusion of thought; and he easily perceived
it the next day, and all the rest of the week, for it was but Tuesday
evening when we talked; but he had no opportunity to come at me all
that week, till the Sunday after, when I, being indisposed, did not go
to church, and he, making some excuse for the like, stayed at home.

And now he had me an hour and a half again by myself, and we fell into
the same arguments all over again, or at least so near the same, as it
would be to no purpose to repeat them. At last I asked him warmly,
what opinion he must have of my modesty, that he could suppose I should
so much as entertain a thought of lying with two brothers, and assured
him it could never be. I added, if he was to tell me that he would
never see me more, than which nothing but death could be more terrible,
yet I could never entertain a thought so dishonourable to myself, and
so base to him; and therefore, I entreated him, if he had one grain of
respect or affection left for me, that he would speak no more of it to
me, or that he would pull his sword out and kill me. He appeared
surprised at my obstinacy, as he called it; told me I was unkind to
myself, and unkind to him in it; that it was a crisis unlooked for upon
us both, and impossible for either of us to foresee, but that he did
not see any other way to save us both from ruin, and therefore he
thought it the more unkind; but that if h