"I cannot do it," she said.
"And why?"
"I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself."
"But do you love me?"
"I cannot analyse my heart. Love you;—yes! I have always loved you. Everything about you is dear to me. I can triumph in your triumphs, rejoice at your joy, weep at your sorrows, be ever anxious that all good things may come to you;—but, Arthur, I cannot be your wife."
"Not though it would make us happy,—Fletchers and Whartons all alike?"
"Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that I have forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it, do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past, without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have trembled when I have heard your voice. My heart has beat at the sound of your footstep as though it would burst! Do you think I have never told myself what I had thrown away? But it is gone, and it is not now within my reach."
"It is; it is," he said, throwing himself on his knees, and twining his arms round her.
"No;—no;—no;—never. I am disgraced and shamed. I have lain among the pots till I am foul and blackened. Take your arms away. They shall not be defiled," she said as she sprang to her feet. "You shall not have the thing that he has left."
"Emily,—it is the only thing in the world that I crave."