CHAPTER XXXV 518
feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin ' s talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
" Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?"
He now turned quite from the moon and faced me. " When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to India?" " You said I could not unless I married you." " And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?"
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
" No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution."
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
" Once more, why this refusal?" he asked.
" Formerly," I answered, " because you did not love me; now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now."
His lips and cheeks turned white-- quite white.
" I SHOULD KILL YOU-- I AM KILLING YOU? Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until