“Insolent!” exclaimed Miss Peyton, raising her eyes for the first time during Leicester’s address, and looking him full in the face. “So far from encouraging him, I have never spoken to him save to turn his pompous speeches into ridicule since I was first introduced to him.” “So I would fain have taught myself to believe yesterday,” resumed Leicester; “but the coldness of your manner towards me, and the marked attention you allowed him to pay you during the evening, tortured me with doubts, and when, after an animated conversation in the music-room, I saw him raise your hand to his lips, I imagined he had put his design into execution, and was an accepted suitor.” “A rejected one would have been nearer the mark,” murmured Miss Peyton. “Utterly miserable,” continued Leicester, “at the idea of having irrevocably lost you--provoked that you should have accepted a man so completely your inferior in mind, and, indeed, in every particular, I ordered post-horses before I retired for the night, and but for this accidental meeting should have been already on my road to London. And now,” he continued with passionate eagerness, “it is for you to decide whether my future life is to be happy or miserable. If truth has any power of revealing itself, you will believe that I love you deeply, tenderly, for yourself alone; and you will decide whether such an affection is calculated to ensure your happiness; but if you are unable to credit my sincerity, only say the word, and I leave you for ever.” He ceased, and clenching his hands in the excess of his emotion till the nails appeared to grow into the flesh, stood before her, pale and agitated, like a criminal awaiting the sentence which shall send him forth a free man or consign him to a felon’s grave. After watching her anxiously for a few moments, during which she remained without speaking, her head averted and her features concealed by her close straw bonnet, he resumed: “I see it is in vain to wait; your silence tells me that I have nothing to hope--fool that I was ever to deem it could be otherwise! Farewell, Laura; may you be as happy as I would have striven to render you.” He turned, and his hand was again on the lock of the door, when a low, sweet voice, every accent of which thrilled through his very soul, murmured-- “Mr. Leicester--Charles--do not go--you will not leave me?”