"If you had seen more of the world, Lucilla," he said, "you would know that a true love like yours is a mystery to a woman like Madame Pratolungo. She doesn't believe in it—she doesn't understand it. She knows herself to be capable of breaking any engagement, if the circumstances encouraged her—and she estimates your fidelity by her knowledge of her own nature. There is nothing in her experience of you, or in her knowledge of my brother's disfigurement, to discourage such a woman from scheming to part us. She has seen for herself—what you have already told me—that you have got over your first aversion to him. She knows that women as charming as you are, have over and over again married men far more personally repulsive than my brother. Lucilla! something which is not to be out-argued, and not to be contradicted, tells me that her return to England will be fatal to my hopes, if that return finds you and me with no closer tie between us than the tie that binds us now. Are these fanciful apprehensions, unworthy of a man? My darling! worthy or not worthy, you ought to make allowances for them. They are apprehensions inspired by my love for You!"
Under those circumstances, I could make every allowance for him—and I said so. He moved nearer to me; and put his arm round me.
"Are we not engaged to each other to be man and wife?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"Are we not both of age, and both free to do as we like?"
"Yes."
"Would you relieve me from the anxieties under which I am suffering, if you could?"
"You know I would!"
"You can relieve me."
"How?"