“Dear Fanny!” he said, “for both our sakes, pray try to be collected:  all my future happiness is at this moment at stake.  I did not bring you here to listen to what I have told you, without having become too painfully sure that your hand, your heart, your love, are necessary to my happiness.  All my hopes are now at stake; but I would not, if I could, secure my own happiness at the expense of yours.  Pray believe me, Fanny, when I say that I love you completely, unalterably, devotedly:  it is necessary now for my own sake that I should say as much as that.  Having told you so much of my own heart, let me hear what you wish to tell me of yours.  Oh, that I might have the most distant gleam of hope, that it would ever return the love which fills my own!”

“It cannot, Adolphus—­it never can,” said she, still trying to hide her tears.  “Oh, why should this bitter misery have been added!” She then rose quickly from her seat, wiped her eyes, and, pushing back her hair, continued, “I will no longer continue to live such a life as I have done—­miserable to myself, and the cause of misery to others.  Adolphus,—­I love Lord Ballindine.  I love him with, I believe, as true and devoted a love as woman ever felt for a man.  I valued, appreciated, gloried in your friendship; but I can never return your, love.  My heart is wholly, utterly, given away; and I would not for worlds receive it back, till I learn from his own mouth that he has ceased to love me.”

“Oh, Fanny! my poor Fanny!” said Kilcullen; “if such is the case, you are really to be pitied.  If this be true, your condition is nearly as unhappy as my own.”

“I am unhappy, very unhappy in your love,” said Fanny, drawing herself up proudly; “but not unhappy in my own.  My misery is that I should be the cause of trouble and unhappiness to others.  I have nothing to regret in my own choice.”

“You are harsh, Fanny.  It may be well that you should be decided, but it cannot become you also to be unfeeling.  I have offered to you all that a man can offer; my name, my fortune, my life, my heart; though you may refuse me, you have no right to be offended with me.”

“Oh, Adolphus!” said she, now in her turn offering him her hand:  “pray forgive me:  pray do not be angry.  Heaven knows I feel no offence:  and how strongly, how sincerely, I feel the compliment you have offered me.  But I want you to see how vain it would be in me to leave you—­leave you in any doubt.  I only spoke as I did to show you I could not think twice, when my heart was given to one whom I so entirely love, respect—­and—­and approve.”

Lord Kilcullen’s face became thoughtful, and his brow grew black:  he stood for some time irresolute what to say or do.

“Let us walk on, Fanny, for this is cold and damp,” he said, at last.

“Let us go back to the house, then.”

“As you like, Fanny.  Oh, how painful all this is! how doubly painful to know that ray own love is hopeless, and that yours is no less so.  Did you not refuse Lord Ballindine?”