“Riches and honours await me, and the cold moralist might desire me to sit down and enjoy them—­I cannot conquer my feelings, and till I do, what are these baubles to me? you may tell me I follow a fleeting good, an ignis fatuus; but this chase, these struggles prepare me for eternity—­when I no longer see through a glass darkly I shall not reason about, but feel in what happiness consists.”

Henry had not attempted to interrupt her; he saw she was determined, and that these sentiments were not the effusion of the moment, but well digested ones, the result of strong affections, a high sense of honour, and respect for the source of all virtue and truth.  He was startled, if not entirely convinced by her arguments; indeed her voice, her gestures were all persuasive.

Some one now entered the room; he looked an answer to her long harangue; it was fortunate for him, or he might have been led to say what in a cooler moment he had determined to conceal; but were words necessary to reveal it?  He wished not to influence her conduct—­vain precaution; she knew she was beloved; and could she forget that such a man loved her, or rest satisfied with any inferior gratification.  When passion first enters the heart, it is only a return of affection that is sought after, and every other remembrance and wish is blotted out.

CHAP.  XIX.

Two days passed away without any particular conversation; Henry, trying to be indifferent, or to appear so, was more assiduous than ever.  The conflict was too violent for his present state of health; the spirit was willing, but the body suffered; he lost his appetite, and looked wretchedly; his spirits were calmly low—­the world seemed to fade away—­what was that world to him that Mary did not inhabit; she lived not for him.

He was mistaken; his affection was her only support; without this dear prop she had sunk into the grave of her lost—­long-loved friend;—­his attention snatched her from despair.  Inscrutable are the ways of Heaven!

The third day Mary was desired to prepare herself; for if the wind continued in the same point, they should set sail the next evening.  She tried to prepare her mind, and her efforts were not useless she appeared less agitated than could have been expected, and talked of her voyage with composure.  On great occasions she was generally calm and collected, her resolution would brace her unstrung nerves; but after the victory she had no triumph; she would sink into a state of moping melancholy, and feel ten-fold misery when the heroic enthusiasm was over.

The morning of the day fixed on for her departure she was alone with Henry only a few moments, and an awkward kind of formality made them slip away without their having said much to each other.  Henry was afraid to discover his passion, or give any other name to his regard but friendship; yet his anxious solicitude for her welfare was ever breaking out-while she as artlessly expressed again and again, her fears with respect to his declining health.