"Pardon the most miserable and the most devoted of men!"
"What need of pardon, dear Stephen?" said Sybil in a soothing
tone. "In the agitated hour wild words escape. If I have
used them, I regret; if you, I have forgotten."
The clock of St John's told that the sixth hour was more than
half-past.
"Ah!" said Sybil, withdrawing her hand, "you told me how
precious was time. What can we do?"
Morley rose from his kneeling position, and again paced the
chamber, lost for some moments in deep meditation. Suddenly
he seized her arm, and said, "I can endure no longer the
anguish of my life: I love you, and if you will not be mine, I
care for no one s fate."
"I am not born for love," said Sybil, frightened, yet
endeavouring to conceal her alarm.
"We are all born for love," said Morley. "It is the principle
of existence, and its only end. And love of you, Sybil," he
continued, in a tone of impassioned pathos, "has been to me
for years the hoarded treasure of my life. For this I have
haunted your hearth and hovered round your home; for this I
have served your father like a slave, and embarked in a cause
with which I have little sympathy, and which can meet with no
success.
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