"Neither, I hope. In the first place, pray do not count upon me to cut off anybody's head. I am a sorry coward, and I have a horror of seeing blood. The other day I saw a dog with a bleeding paw, and I thought I should faint." "Ah!" exclaimed Reuben bitterly, "better were it to cause the impious to lose every drop of blood in his veins than to inspire a single evil thought in the just. I feel within myself that it is a sin to look upon you; my will totters when for too long a space my eyes have rested upon those shoulders, that slender form, those brilliant eyes, that bud-like mouth. Sometimes it seems to me that I would suffer eternal damnation for you, and that I should find an abominable pleasure in it! How many times have I prayed God to destroy those adorable features which it has pleased him to create! Willingly would I obliterate and annihilate them!" "Are you going mad?" cried Esther in alarm. "And yet you say you love me!" "Yes," replied Reuben: "we alone know how to love, because we alone know how to hate,--we, the sons of the saints whose hearts are full of bitterness and sorrow. They do not love who live in joy and pleasure. My love increases with the tears that it causes me to shed, with the combats that I undergo for you, and, moreover, with the fury that I experience against those who raise their eyes upon your beauty!" Involuntarily he had raised his voice. The old lady awoke with a start. "Naughty children!" she murmured querulously. "Quarrelling again?--you who were born to understand one another, and to be happy!" CHAPTER VII. CONFIDENCES. Esther succeeded in persuading good Mrs. Marsham that she ought not to accompany her to her next sitting with Sir Joshua, since the great painter desired to be alone with his model. The age and eminent reputation of the President of the Academy removed far from him all suspicion; consequently there was nothing to be done but to respect his wishes. Therefore Esther went alone to Leicester Fields in a sedan-chair borne by a couple of doughty Irishmen; but she could not repress a movement of impatience upon perceiving Reuben on horseback following her at a short distance with his sombre glance. When she entered the house the young man quickly alighted, attached the bridle of his horse to the railing of the square, and, seating himself upon a bench, fixed his eyes upon Sir Joshua's door. [Illustration] "Shadowed!" murmured the girl. The desire of deceiving one's jailers, the omnipresent dream of evasion which ever haunts the prisoner, filled her mind and inclined her to anger. "Bah!" she thought, "my deliverance is close at hand." She swiftly mounted the stairs which led to the studio, and was received by Francis Monday.