He coloured, as if angry with himself even for the surmize; and Ellis raised her eyes, with a vivacity that reproached the question; but dropt them almost instantaneously.

'That generous look,' he continued, 'revives, re-assures me. From this moment, then, I will forego all pretensions beyond those of a friend. I am come to you completely with that intention. Madness, indeed,—but for the circumstances which robbed me of self-command,—madness alone could have formed any other, in an ignorance so profound as that in which I am held of all that belongs to propriety. Does not this confession shew you the reliance you may have upon the sincerity with which I mean to sustain my promised character? Will it not quiet your alarms? Will it not induce you to give me such a portion of your trust as may afford me some chance of being useful to you? Speak, I entreat; devise some service,—and you shall see, when a man is piqued upon being disinterested, how completely he can forget—seem to forget, at least!—all that would bring him back, exclusively, to himself.—Will you not, then, try me?'

Ellis, who had been silent to recover the steadiness of her voice, now quietly answered, 'I am in no situation, Sir, for hazarding experiments. What you deem to be your own duties I have no doubt that you fulfil; you will the less, therefore, be surprised, that I decidedly adhere to what appears to me to be mine. Your visits, Sir, must cease: your letters I can never answer, and must not receive: we must have no intercourse whatever; partial nor general. Your friendship, nevertheless, if under that name you include good will and good wishes, I am far from desiring to relinquish:—but your kind offices—grateful to me, at this moment, as all kindness would be!'—she sighed, but hurried on; 'those, in whatever form you can present them, I must utterly disclaim and repel. Pardon, Sir, this hard speech. I hold it right to be completely understood; and to be definitive.'

Turning then, another way, she bid him good morning.

Harleigh, inexpressibly disappointed, stood, for some minutes, suspended whether resentfully to tear himself away, or importunately to solicit again her confidence. The hesitation, as usual where hesitation is indulged in matters of feeling, ended in directing him to follow his wishes; though he became more doubtful how to express them, and more fearful of offending or tormenting her. Yet in contrasting her desolate situation with her spirit and firmness, redoubled admiration took place of all displeasure. What, at first, appeared icy inflexibility, seemed, after a moment's pause, the pure effect of a noble disdain of trifling; a genuine superiority to coquetry. But doubly sad to him was the inference thence deduced. She cruelly wanted assistance; a sigh escaped her at the very thought of kindness; yet she rejected his most disinterested offers of aid; evidently in apprehension lest, at any future period, he might act, or think, as one who considered himself to be internally favoured.

Impressed with this idea, 'I dare not,' he gently began, 'disobey commands so peremptory; yet—' He stopt abruptly, with a start that seemed the effect of sudden horrour. Ellis, again looking up, saw his colour changed, and that he was utterly disordered. His eyes directed her soon to the cause: the letter which she had cast into the fire, and from which, on his entrance, he had scrupulously turned his view, now accidentally caught it, by a fragment unburnt, which dropt from the stove upon the hearth. He immediately recognized his hand-writing.

This was a blow for which he was wholly unprepared. He had imagined that, whether she answered his letter or not, she would have weighed its contents, have guarded it for that purpose; perhaps have prized it! But, to see it condemned to annihilation; to find her inexorably resolute not to listen to his representations; nor, even in his absence, to endure in her sight what might bring either him or his opinions to her recollection; affected him so deeply, that, nearly unconscious what he was about, he threw himself upon a chair, exclaiming, 'The illusion is past!'

Ellis, with gravity, but surprise, ejaculated, an interrogative, 'Sir?'

'Pardon me,' he cried, rising, and in great agitation; 'pardon me that I have so long, and so frequently, intruded upon your patience! I begin, indeed, now, to perceive—but too well!—how I must have persecuted, have oppressed you. I feel my error in its full force:—but that eternal enemy to our humility, our philosophy, our contentment in ill success, Hope,—or rather, perhaps, self-love,—had so dimmed my perceptions, so flattered my feelings, so loitered about my heart, that still I imagined, still I thought possible, that as a friend, at least, I might not find you unattainable; that my interest for your welfare, my concern for your difficulties, my irrepressible anxiety to diminish them, might have touched those cords whence esteem, whence good opinion vibrate; might have excited that confidence which, regulated by your own delicacy, your own scruples, might have formed the basis of that zealous, yet pure attachment, which is certainly the second blessing, and often the first balm of human existence,—permanent and blameless friendship!'

Ellis looked visibly touched and disturbed as she answered, 'I am very sensible, Sir, of the honour you do me, and of the value of your approbation: it would not be easy to me, indeed, to say—unfriended, unsupported, nameless that I am!—how high a sense I feel of your generous judgment: but, as you pleaded to me just now,' half smiling, 'in one point, the customs of the world; you must not so far forget them in another, as not to acknowledge that a confidence, a friendship, such as you describe, with one so lonely, so unprotected, would oppose them utterly. I need only, I am sure, without comment, without argument, without insistance, call this idea to your recollection, to see you willingly relinquish an impracticable plan: to see you give up all visits; forego every species of correspondence, and hasten, yourself, to finish an intercourse which, in the eye of that world, and of those prejudices, those connections, to which you appeal, would be regarded as dangerous, if not injurious.'