And she clung to me with a grasp as if life and death depended on it, while her sobs, as from a full heart, were insuppressible in spite of all her efforts.
“Fear nothing, dearest Julia: do you not believe that I love you?”
“Ah! if I did not, Edward—”
“It is with you always to make me love you. You are as completely the mistress of my whole heart as if it had acknowledged no laws but yours from the beginning.”
“What am I to do, dear Edward?”
“Forbear—be indulgent—pity me and spare me!”
“What mean you, Edward?”
“That heart which is all and only yours, Julia, is yet, I am assured, a wilful and an erring heart! I feel that it is strange, wayward, sometimes unjust to others, frequently to itself. It is a cross-grained, capricious heart; you will find its exactions irksome.”
“Oh, I know it better. You wrong yourself.”
“No! In the solemn sweetness of this hour, dear Julia—now, while all things are sweet to our eyes, all things dear to our affections—I feel a chill of doubt and apprehension come over me. I am so happy—so unusually happy—that I can not feel sure that I am so—that my happiness will continue long. I will try, on my own part, to do nothing by which to risk its loss. But I feel that I am too wilful, at times, to be strong in keeping a resolution which is so very necessary to our mutual happiness. You must help—you must strengthen me, Julia.”