"I believe I am."

"Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel."

"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this
present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come
charged?"

"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or
over-fatigued."

"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"

"Calm?--no: but happy--to the heart's core."

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent
and flushed.

"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any
weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?--that
I shall not prove a good husband?"

"It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."

"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?--of the
new life into which you are passing?"

"No."

"You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex
and pain me. I want an explanation."

"Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?"

"I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had
happened in my absence:--nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in
short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said
something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk?--your
sensitive self-respect has been wounded?"

"No, sir." It struck twelve--I waited till the time-piece had concluded
its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I
proceeded.

"All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless
bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting
fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to
have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don't
caress me now--let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in
Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good
and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect--the calmness of the air
and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your
journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of
you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your
actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before me--_your_ life,
sir--an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more
so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows
of its own strait channel. I wondered why moralists call