"But what?"
"I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then be yet more to me than ever!"
"Dearest!"
"But why do you speak thus; only to try me? Ah! that is needless."
"No, my Madeline; I have no doubt of your affection. When you loved such as me, I knew at once how blind, how devoted must be that love. You were not won through the usual avenues to a woman's heart; neither wit nor gaiety, nor youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful to make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also sufficiently enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, Madeline. Do not yet ask me wherefore; but I fear, that a certain fatality will constrain us to leave this spot, very shortly after our wedding."
"How disappointed my poor father will be!" said Madeline, sighing.
b 5
