"Neither your joy nor your hope, Mr. Hetherington, would do me much good, I am afraid. In one word, much as it will surprise you to hear it from my father's daughter, I am not evangelical, sir."
"It is but a reason the more for my wishing to call you mine! If my opinions are unsound, you shall correct them."
"I wish you would be persuaded, Mr. Hetherington, to desist from this suit. I know that if my father has permitted it, I may find it become very troublesome to me, unless you have yourself the generosity to withdraw it; for my father does not brook contradiction."
"Ask any proof of my obedience but this, and you shall find me a slave, having no will but that of my charming mistress; but to resign you while I enjoy the inestimable privilege of your illustrious father's sanction, it is impossible."
"Then, sir," said Henrietta, in an altered voice that betokened strong emotion, "if nothing less will save me from this persecution, I will disclose to you the great secret of my life; make of it what use you will. I am an Atheist."
"Surely you cannot suppose, my beloved Miss Cartwright, that this confession can produce any effect upon my love, unless indeed it be to augment it. What noble frankness! what confiding trust! Believe me, there can be no difference of opinion between us on any subject sufficiently strong to conquer the tender and powerful passion you have inspired. Yield then to the soft violence which I know will be sanctioned by your respected father—let me thus——"
"Leave me, wretch!" exclaimed Henrietta in a voice that made Rosalind tremble. "He may lock me up and half-starve me, for he has done it before to make me obey his will, and I have obeyed it, and hated myself for my cowardice; but I will not marry you, Mr. Hetherington, even should he treat me worse than he has yet done—which would not be easy. Go, sir, go—I am an Atheist; but horrible as that sounds even to my own ears, it is better than to be what you have proved yourself."
Rosalind, hardly less agitated than Henrietta appeared to be, stood trembling from head to foot in her retreat, till aware that the unscrupulous Mr. Hetherington had retreated in one direction, and the unhappy Henrietta returned to the house by another.