“Take comfort, Lucy,” he replied; “this will not—­shall not be our last meeting.  It is utterly impossible that such a creature as you are should be doomed to a fate so wretched.  Do not allow them to hurry you into this odious marriage.  Gain time, and we shall yet triumph.”

“Yes, Charles,” she replied; “but, then, misery often grows apathetic, and the will, wearied down and weakened, loses the power of resistance.  I have more than once felt attacks of this kind, and I know that if they should observe it, I am lost.  Oh, how little is the love of woman understood!  And how little of life is known except through those false appearances that are certain to deceive all who look upon them as realities!  Here am I, surrounded by every luxury that this world, can present, and how many thousands imagine me happy!  What is there within the range of fashion and the compass of wealth that I cannot command? and yet amidst all this dazzle of grandeur I am more wretched than the beggar whom a morsel of food will make contented.”

“Resist this marriage, Lucy, for a time, that is all I ask,” replied her lover; “be firm, and, above all things, hope.  You may ere long understand the force and meaning of my words.  At present you cannot, nor is it in my power, with honor, to speak more plainly.”

“My father,” replied this high-minded and sensitive creature, “said some time ago, ‘Is not my daughter a woman of honor?’ Yes, Charles, I must be a woman of honor.  But it is time you should go; only before you do, hear me.  Henceforth we have each of us one great mutual task imposed upon us—­a task the fulfilment of which is dictated alike by honor, virtue, and religion.”

“Alas, Lucy, what is that?”

“To forget each other.  From the moment I become,” she sobbed aloud—­“you know,” she added, “what I would say, but what I cannot—­from that moment memory becomes a crime.”

“But an involuntary crime, my ever dear Lucy.  As for my part,” he replied, vehemently, and with something akin to distraction, “I feel that is impossible, and that even were it possible, I would no more attempt to banish your image from my heart than I would to deliberately still its pulses.  Never, never—­such an attempt, such an act, if successful, would be a murder of the affections.  No.  Lucy, whilst one spark of mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him through the midnight storm—­as a despairing soul would to the only good act of a wicked life that he could plead for his salvation.”