e, no. Again, in my turn, I say, this must not be; you are
_no_ stranger. I know you at this hour as well as if I had known you
from the first hour of my being. I gave my heart to you from the moment
when I first saw you among your countrywomen in England. It required no
time to make me feel that you were my fate. It was an instinct, a spell,
a voice of nature, a voice of heaven within me!"

She listened and trembled. I again took the hand, which was withheld no
more. "From that day, Clotilde, you were my thought by day and my dream
by night. All my desires of distinction were, that it might be seen by
your eye; all my hopes of fortune, that I might be enabled to lay it at
your feet. If a throne were offered to me on condition of renouncing
you, I should have rejected it. If it were my lot to labour in the
humblest rank of life, with _you_ by my side I should have cheerfully
laboured; and, with your hand in mine, I should have said, I have found
what is worth the world--happiness!"

Tears flowed down her cheeks, which were now like marble. She feebly
attempted to smile, while, with eyelids drooping, and her whole frame
quivering with emotion, she murmured in broken accents, "It is
impossible--utterly impossible! leave me. I must not bring you a
portionless, a helpless, a nameless being--a mere dependent on your
kindness, a burden on your fortune, an obstacle to your whole advance in
the world!" A rich flush suddenly lighted up her lovely countenance, and
a new splendour flashed from her eyes. She threw back her head loftily,
and looking upwards, as if to draw thoughts from above--"Sir," said she,
"I am as proud as you. I have had noble ancestors; I have borne a noble
name. If that name has fallen, it is in the common wreck of my country.
Our fortunes have sunk, only where the monarchy has gone down along with
them; and I shall never degrade the memory of those ancestors, nor
humiliate still more the fallen name of our house, by imposing my
obscurity, my poverty, on one who has honoured me as you have done.
Now--farewell! My resolution is fixed. Farewell, my friend! I shall
never forget this day." She turned away her face, and wept abundantly;
then, fixing a deep look on me, she added--"I own that it would be a
consolation to Clotilde de Tourville to believe that she may be
sometimes remembered; but, until times change, we meet no more--if they
change not, we part for ever."

I was so completely startled, so thunderstr