"Peace, oh! peace. Do not, I pray you, accumulate reasons why I should receive such a dismal, awful superstition. Oh, do not, Marchdale, as you love me!"
"You know that my attachment to you," said Marchdale, "is sincere; and yet, Heaven help us!"
His voice was broken by grief as he spoke, and he turned aside his head to hide the bursting tears that would, despite all his efforts, show themselves in his eyes.
"Marchdale," added Henry, after a pause of some moments' duration, "I will sit up to-night with my sister."
"Do—do!"
"Think you there is a chance it may come again?"
"I cannot—I dare not speculate upon the coming of so dreadful a visitor, Henry; but I will hold watch with you most willingly."
"You will, Marchdale?"
"My hand upon it. Come what dangers may, I will share them with you, Henry."
"A thousand thanks. Say nothing, then, to George of what we have been talking about. He is of a highly susceptible nature, and the very idea of such a thing would kill him."