"Indeed!"
"No; you have never felt what it was to hold your being upon the breath of another. You can reason calmly, because you cannot know the extent of feeling you are vainly endeavouring to combat."
"Flora, you do me less than justice. All I wish to impress upon your mind is, that you are not in any way picked out by Providence to be specially unhappy—that there is no perversion of nature on your account."
"Call you that hideous vampyre form that haunts me no perversion of ordinary nature?"
"What is is natural," said Marchdale.
"Cold reasoning to one who suffers as I suffer. I cannot argue with you; I can only know that I am most unhappy—most miserable."
"But that will pass away, sister, and the sun of your happiness may smile again."
"Oh, if I could but hope!"
"And wherefore should you deprive yourself of that poorest privilege of the most unhappy?"
"Because my heart tells me to despair."