“You would ask in vain; my happiness, my welfare in life, every hope here and hereafter is bound up in the thoughts of you, in the wish to make you my wife!”
She tried to stop him as he spoke, but her gentle interruption was quite unheeded as he poured out his vehement declarations.
“Why have you refused to see me, shut yourself up, and banished me from your house? What makes you, one so tender, loving, gentle as you, what makes you so hard, so unpersuadable to me? What have I done that you will not love me? What is there in me, about me, belonging to me, that makes me disagreeable? And why this coquetry; at one time readily listening, calmly permitting, if not encouraging, my devotion,
then denying me all interest, all concern; repulsing me entirely? Is this fair! just! right! Hilary! Do you think those who witnessed your peril, and your rescue, in my park, doubted the motives which nerved my arm and warmed my heart? Do you think their plaudits were valued for any thing besides the worth they might give me in your eyes? And, Hilary, is my reward to be ever the no! no! no! which dooms me to misery, despair, and heartless solitude?”
Mr. Huyton rose as he spoke, and stood before her in magnificent desperation. She looked at him amazed; he was strangely altered. He was no longer the humble suppliant; he seemed to think he had earned a right other, that she was his in equity.
“Mr. Huyton, you are unjust, and such language as this is strangely unpleasant to hear. I do not know what claim you have to speak so. I have never intentionally done any thing to give you hopes that I should change as you wish. Again, I must ask you to be silent, or I shall leave this shelter; I would rather encounter the storm without, than listen to such words.”
“You do not know my claim? It is the claim of love, constant, unchanging love, the love of years. Not the feeble growth of a week’s intercourse; the every-day admiration, which at one moment distinguishes its object, the next leaves it without a sigh or a struggle; it is the passionate glowing devotion which rises beyond every earthly consideration, which sets neither honor nor duty above it—which knows no honor, owns no duty except that of loving unchangeably and deeply. This is my claim, who can produce a better? who has striven harder, longer, more devotedly, to make this love apparent?”
“I will neither listen to, nor answer such language,” replied she, decidedly; “let me pass.”
“I will not,” said he, placing himself in the door-way; “do you suppose I would allow you to go out in this storm, expose yourself to such risk? Sit still.”
“Then,” said Hilary, reseating herself, “as you are a man and a gentleman, be silent.”