ge has justified their confidence
in it. Look at your own case once again. At your age, and with your
attractions, is it possible for you to sentence yourself to a single
life? Trust my knowledge of the world--nothing is less possible. It
is merely a question of time. You may marry some other man, some years
hence. Or you may marry the man, dearest, who is now at your feet, and
who prizes your respect and admiration above the love of any other woman
on the face of the earth."

"Gently, Godfrey! you are putting something into my head which I never
thought of before. You are tempting me with a new prospect, when all my
other prospects are closed before me. I tell you again, I am miserable
enough and desperate enough, if you say another word, to marry you on
your own terms. Take the warning, and go!"

"I won't even rise from my knees, till you have said yes!"

"If I say yes you will repent, and I shall repent, when it is too late!"

"We shall both bless the day, darling, when I pressed, and when you
yielded."

"Do you feel as confidently as you speak?"

"You shall judge for yourself. I speak from what I have seen in my own
family. Tell me what you think of our household at Frizinghall. Do my
father and mother live unhappily together?"

"Far from it--so far as I can see."

"When my mother was a girl, Rachel (it is no secret in the family), she
had loved as you love--she had given her heart to a man who was unworthy
of her. She married my father, respecting him, admiring him, but nothing
more. Your own eyes have seen the result. Is there no encouragement in
it for you and for me?" *

* See Betteredge's Narrative, chapter viii.

"You won't hurry me, Godfrey?"

"My time shall be yours."

"You won't ask me for more than I can give?"

"My angel! I only ask you to give me yourself."

"Take me!"

In those two words she accepted him!

He had another burst--a burst of unholy rapture this time. He drew her
nearer and nearer to him till her face touched his; and then--No! I
really cannot prevail upon myself to carry this shocking disclosure
any farther. Let me only say, that I tried to close my eyes before it
happened, and that I was just one moment too late. I had calculated, you
see, on her resisting. She submitted. To every right-feeling person of
my own sex, volumes could say no more.

Even my innocence in such matters began to see its way to the end of the
interview now. They understood each other so th