This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those 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."