s,) "often unreasonable--often unjust."

"No, no!" I exclaimed, "that you have never been."

"Yes I have, Ellen," he continued, with earnestness; "though I
saw much in your voice, in your countenance, and in your
manner, that made me feel I was not indifferent to you; still
I was tormented with doubts and with jealousies, which were
unworthy of you and of myself. What I now see was only pity
and kindness for others, I construed into causes for
suspicion: what I now feel was forbearance and delicacy of
feeling on your part, I called _deceit_. I thought you
deceitful; I called you deceitful: yet my own heart
contradicted me, Ellen: for it would never have loved you,
clung to you, as it has done, had you not been true, truer in
your changeable moods and unguarded impulses, 'than those that
have more cunning to be strange.' No, my dearest, my precious
love! if falsehood or deceit had ever stained those dear lips
of yours, if they had ever sullied the purity of your spotless
nature, my love would have vanished, and my heart hardened
against you. The very strength of my own affection pleaded for
you, when appearances, or my own jealous feelings, accused
you. Will you forgive me, dearest?"

"Forgive you!" I exclaimed, while a choking sob rose in my
throat, "God knows--"

"I do not doubt you," he eagerly cried; "I do not ask you to
explain or to reassure me. Have I not already acquitted you,
and accused myself? I should be a wretch, my Ellen, if, after
having received from you the greatest proof of lore which a
woman could give, the shadow of a doubt could remain on my
mind, of the purity and of the strength of your affection. Do
you think, my own love, that I should have suffered you to
give me that proof of unexampled devotion, had I not believed
and felt that you were then suffering the agony of
apprehension, which I had suffered a moment before? that your
love was great as mine, and that is saying everything; for I
feel now, Ellen, that to lose you would kill me."

I laid my head on his shoulder, and murmured a few words of
tenderness in his ear. My heart was swelling, and my head was
dizzy. Three times, while he had spoken, I had been on the
point of breaking out into vehement denials, and passionate
self-accusations; and each time the doctor's warning,
confirmed by Edward's tremulous voice and eager hurried
manner, so different from his usual composure, checked the
words on my lips, and thrust back into my bosom