"It is idle--idle--idle!" she answered, moving to and fro; "you can not comprehend it. Men have no sense of these things. Happy for them it is so. I believe you mean all in kindness--I believe your manhood, your pride would not allow you to see me unprotected, lost, degraded so early! No! don't speak! Let me go on. He makes a condition that I should leave you--that I should violate the most solemn obligation of my life, and proclaim myself that which my soul recoils from, and my lips dare not utter; then, when I shall have damned myself, he will protect me! With a forbearance, for which I ought to be thankful he will watch over me unseen--provide for my wants--take care that I am fed and housed; and having secured my dependence on him, and broken my rebellious heart, he will take infinite credit to himself for the delicacy and magnanimity with which he has treated me. Oh man--man! how little you know our natures, and how superior we are to you, even in our degradation! I ask you, in what light must he regard me who could presume to make such a proposition? And in what light should I deserve to be regarded if I accepted it?" "It is quite true, Astræa. I feel the whole force of your observations. The proposition is an insult." "Thank you--thank you, for that word!" she exclaimed, throwing herself into my arms, and bursting into a flood of tears. "There is something yet left to cling to. Thank God, I am not yet so lost but that you should feel it to be an insult to me. It is something not to be yet quite beyond the reach of insult." "Astræa," I said, folding her tenderly in my arms, "compose yourself, and trust to me. We must trust to each other. There--there--dear Astræa!" "What a wretch should I be," she replied, "if _this_ were all--if it were for _this_ I forfeited every thing; no, no, _you_ don't think so. It is my last hold--self-respect!--and it is in your keeping. For you I gave up all--and would have given up life itself--it would be hard if I should perish in my sin by his hands for whom I sinned!" Then releasing herself from me, she grasped my arm, and looking earnestly into my face, she demanded, "And what answer did you give to this proposal?" "Why, what answer should I give, but that I knew you would spurn it?" "That was right!" she cried; "right--manly--honest. We must let him know that I am not the defenseless outcast he supposes; he must see and feel that we can walk abroad as proudly in the open day as he or his. _His_ vengeance? What have we to fear? Let us cast the shame from us and show ourselves to the world. We make our own disgrace by hiding and flying from our friends. You see how our forbearance has been appreciated, and what a charitable construction has been put upon our conduct. We owe it to ourselves to vindicate ourselves. I will endure those dismal whispers that carry a blight in every word no longer. I would rather die! Come--let us decide once and forever our future course!"