‘Yes,’ he went on, ’it is you I love; my sentiment towards your sister is one of affection too, but protective, tutelary affection—­no more.  Say what you will I cannot help it.  I mistook my feeling for her, and I know how much I am to blame for my want of self-knowledge.  I have fought against this discovery night and day; but it cannot be concealed.  Why did I ever see you, since I could not see you till I had committed myself?  At the moment my eyes beheld you on that day of my arrival, I said, “This is the woman for whom my manhood has waited.”  Ever since an unaccountable fascination has riveted my heart to you.  Answer one word!’

‘O, M. de la Feste!’ I burst out.  What I said more I cannot remember, but I suppose that the misery I was in showed pretty plainly, for he said, ’Something must be done to let her know; perhaps I have mistaken her affection, too; but all depends upon what you feel.’

‘I cannot tell what I feel,’ said I, ’except that this seems terrible treachery; and every moment that I stay with you here makes it worse! . . . Try to keep faith with her—­her young heart is tender; believe me there is no mistake in the quality of her love for you.  Would there were!  This would kill her if she knew it!’

He sighed heavily.  ‘She ought never to be my wife,’ he said.  ’Leaving my own happiness out of the question, it would be a cruelty to her to unite her to me.’

I said I could not hear such words from him, and begged him in tears to go away; he obeyed, and I heard the garden door shut behind him.  What is to be the end of the announcement, and the fate of Caroline?

May 20.—­I put a good deal on paper yesterday, and yet not all.  I was, in truth, hoping against hope, against conviction, against too conscious self-judgment.  I scarcely dare own the truth now, yet it relieves my aching heart to set it down.  Yes, I love him—­that is the dreadful fact, and I can no longer parry, evade, or deny it to myself though to the rest of the world it can never be owned.  I love Caroline’s betrothed, and he loves me.  It is no yesterday’s passion, cultivated by our converse; it came at first sight, independently of my will; and my talk with him yesterday made rather against it than for it, but, alas, did not quench it.  God forgive us both for this terrible treachery.

May 25.—­All is vague; our courses shapeless.  He comes and goes, being occupied, ostensibly at least, with sketching in his tent in the wood.  Whether he and she see each other privately I cannot tell, but I rather think they do not; that she sadly awaits him, and he does not appear.  Not a sign from him that my repulse has done him any good, or that he will endeavour to keep faith with her.  O, if I only had the compulsion of a god, and the self-sacrifice of a martyr!