'But I cannot live, I cannot live,' replied Glenmurray, 'and the sooner I die the better;--for thus to waste your youth and health in the dreadful solitude of a sick-room is insupportable to me.' 'O Glenmurray!' replied Adeline, fondly throwing herself on his neck, 'could you but live free from any violent pain, and were neither you nor I ever to leave this room again, believe me, I should not have a wish beyond it. To see you, to hear you, to prove to you how much I love you, would, indeed it would, be happiness sufficient for me!' After this burst of true and heartfelt tenderness, there was a pause of some moments: Glenmurray felt too much to speak, and Adeline was sobbing on his pillow. At length she pathetically again exclaimed, 'Live! only live! and I am blest!' 'But I _cannot_ live, I _cannot_ live,' again replied Glenmurray; 'and when I die, what will become of you?' 'I care not,' cried Adeline: 'if I lose you, may the same grave receive us!' 'But it _will_ not, my dearest:--grief does not kill; and, entailed as my estate is, I have nothing to leave you: and though richly qualified to undertake the care of children, in order to maintain yourself, your unfortunate connexion, and singular opinions, will be an eternal bar to your being so employed. O Adeline! these cutting fears, these dreadful reflections, are indeed the bitterness of death: but there is one way of alleviating my pangs.' 'Name it,' replied Adeline with quickness. 'But you must promise then to hear me with patience.--Had I been able to live through my illness, I should have conjured you to let me endeavour to restore you to your place in society, and consequently to your usefulness, by making you my wife: and young, and I may add innocent and virtuous, as you are, I doubt not but the world would at length have received you into its favour again.' 'But you must, you will, you shall live,' interrupted Adeline, 'and I shall be your happy wife.' 'Not _mine_' replied Glenmurray, laying an emphasis on the last word. Adeline started, and, fixing her eyes wildly on his, demanded what he meant. 'I mean,' replied he, 'to prevail on you to make my last moments happy, by promising, some time hence, to give yourself a tender, a respectable, and a legal protector.' 'O Glenmurray!' exclaimed Adeline, 'and can you insult my tenderness for you with such a proposal? If I can even survive you, do you think that I can bear to give you a successor in my affection? or, how can you bear to imagine that I shall?'