I averted my face from hers, but without speaking. She threw her

arms around my neck.

"Do not turn away from me, Edward. Do not, do not, I entreat you!

You must not--no! not till you tell me what is troubling you--not

till I soothe you, and make you love me again as much as you did

at first."

When I turned to her again, the tears--hot, scalding tears--were

already streaming down my cheeks.

"Julia, God knows I love you! Never woman yet was more devotedly

loved by man! I love you too much--too deeply--too entirely! Alas,

I love nothing else!"

"Say not that you love me too much--that can not be! Do I not love

you--you only, you altogether? Should I not have your whole love

in return?"

"Ah, Julia! but my love is a convulsive eagerness of soul--a passion

that knows no limit! It is not that my heart is entirely yours:

it is that it is yours with a frenzied desperation. There is a

fanaticism in love as in religion. My love is that fanaticism. It

burns--it commands--where yours would but soothe and solicit."

"But is mine the less true--the less valuable for this, dear Edward?"

"No, perhaps not! It may be even more true, more valuable; it may

be only less intense. But fanaticism, you know, is exacting--nothing

more so. It permits no half-passion, no moderate zeal. It insists

upon devotion like its own. Ah, Julia, could you but love as I do!"

"I love you all, Edward, all that I can, and as it belongs in my

nature to love. But I am a woman, and a timid one, you know. I am

not capable of that wild passion which you feel. Were I to indulge

it, it would most certainly destroy me. Even as it sometimes appears

in you, it terrifies and unnerves me. You are so impetuous!"

"Ah, you would have only the meek, the amiable!"

And thus, with an implied sarcasm, our conversation ended. Julia

turned on me a look of imploring, which was naturally one of

reproach. It did not have its proper influence upon me. I seized

my hat, and hurried from the house. I rushed, rather than walked,

through the streets; and, before I knew where I was, I found myself

on the banks of the river, under the shade of trees, with the soft

evening breeze blowing upon me, and the placid moon sailing quietly

above. I threw myself down upon the grass, and delivered myself up

to gloomy thoughts. Here was I, then, scarcely twenty-five years

old; young, vigorous; with a probable chance of fortune before me;

a young and lovely wife, the very creature of my first and only

choice, one whom I tenderly loved, whom, if to seek again, I should

again, and again, and only, seek! Yet I was miserable--miserable

in the very possession of my first hopes, my best joys--the very

treasure that had always seemed the dearest in my sight. Miserable

blind heart! miserable indeed! For what was there to make me

miserable? Absolutely nothing--nothing that the outer world could

give--nothing that it could ever take away. But what fool is it

that fancies there must be a reason for one's wretchedness? The

reason is in our own hearts; in the perverseness which can make of

its own heaven a hell! not often fashion a heaven out of hell!




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