“I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?”
“This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or over-fatigued.”
“Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?”
“Calm?—no: but happy—to the heart’s core.”
I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.
“Give me your confidence, Jane,” he said: “relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that I shall not prove a good husband?”
“It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.”
“Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?—of the new life into which you are passing?”
“No.”
“You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation.”