"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't
understand that, because you do not know what you are to me.
No, you never guessed that all this while I've been loving you more
and more, until now I have no other idea of death than not to see
you, not to love you, not to share your life!"
"Oh, Richard!"
"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this
to myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb
the peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take
it back, if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me
for loving you--forgive me now and every day of my life."
He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on
the edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight
frame trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had
become very pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over
neck and brow as she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered
flowers fell from her hands, and she hid her face. For a few
minutes no sound was heard but the liquid gurgling of the water,
and the whistle of a bird in the thicket beside them.
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