"But should he?"
"I can not serve him."
"Julia, you are a cold-hearted woman--you do not love me."
"Cold-hearted, Edward, cold-hearted? Not love you, Edward?--Oh,
surely, you can not mean it. No! no! you can not!"
She threw herself into my arms, clasped me fondly in hers, and the
warm tears from her eyes gushed into my bosom.
"Love me, love my dog--at least my friend!" I exclaimed, in austere
accents, but without repulsing her. I could not repulse her.
I had not strength to put her from me. The embrace was too dear;
and the energy with which she rejected a suggestion in which
I proposed only to try and test her, made her doubly dear at that
moment to my bosom. Alas! how, in the attempt to torture others,
do we torture ourselves! If I afflicted Julia in this scene, I
am very sure that my own sufferings were more intense. One thing
alone would have made them so. The ONE quality of evil, of the
bad spirit which mingled in with MY feelings, and did not trouble
HERS. But, just then I did not think her innocent altogether.
I still had my doubts that her resistance to my wishes was simply
meant to conceal that tendency in her own, the exposure of which
she had naturally every reason to dread. The demon of the blind
heart, though baffled for awhile, was still busy. Alas! he was not
always to be baffled.