“I understand you, Mark Forrester—­I understand you, but it must not be.  I must regard and live for affections besides my own.  Would you have me fly for ever from those who have been all to me—­from those to whom I am all—­from my father—­from my dear, my old mother!  Fy, Mark.”

“And are you not all to me, Katharine—­the one thing for which I would live, and wanting which I care not to live?  Ay, Katharine, fly with me from all—­and yet not for ever.  They will follow you, and our end will then be answered.  Unless you do this, they would linger on in this place without an object, even if permitted, which is very doubtful, to hold their ground—­enjoying life as a vegetable, and dead before life itself is extinct.”

“Spare your speech, Mark—­on this point you urge me in vain,” was the firm response of the maiden.  “Though I feel for you as as I feel for none other, I also feel that I have other ties and other obligations, all inconsistent with the step which you would have me take.  I will not have you speak of it further—­on this particular I am immoveable.”

A shade of mortification clouded the face of Forrester as she uttered these words, and for a moment he was silent.  Resuming, at length, with something of resignation in his manner, he continued—­

“Well, Kate, since you will have it so, I forbear; though, what course is left for you, and what hope for me, if your father continues in his present humor, I am at a loss to see.  There is one thing, however—­there is one pledge that I would exact from you before we part.”

He took her hand tenderly as he spoke, and his eyes, glistening with tearful expectation, were fixed upon her own; but she did not immediately reply.  She seemed rather to await the naming of the pledge of which he spoke.  There was a struggle going on between her mind and her affections; and though, in the end, the latter seemed to obtain the mastery, the sense of propriety, the moral guardianship of her own spirit battled sternly and fearlessly against their suggestions.  She would make no promise which might, by any possibility, bind her to an engagement inconsistent with other and primary obligations.

“I know not, Mark, what may be the pledge which you would have from me, to which I could consent with propriety.  When I hear your desires, plainly expressed to my understanding, I shall better know how to reply.  You heard the language of my father:  I must obey his wishes as far as I know them.  Though sometimes rough, and irregular in his habits, to me he has been at all times tender and kind:  I would not now disobey his commands.  Still, in this matter, my heart inclines too much in your favor not to make me less scrupulous than I should otherwise desire to be.  Besides, I have so long held myself yours, and with his sanction, that I can the more easily listen to your entreaties.  If, then you truly love me, you will, I am sure, ask nothing that I should not grant.  Speak—­what is the pledge?”