“You have said such things often,” said Alice, “and they are such as I ought not to hear, and do not desire to hear. I have no tasks to impose on you--no enemies to be destroyed--no need or desire of protection--no wish, Heaven knows, to expose you to danger--It is your visits here alone to which danger attaches. You have but to rule your own wilful temper--to turn your thoughts and your cares elsewhere, and I can have nothing to ask--nothing to wish for. Use your own reason--consider the injury you do yourself--the injustice you do us--and let me, once more, in fair terms, entreat you to absent yourself from this place--till--till----” She paused, and Julian eagerly interrupted her.--“Till when, Alice?--till when?--impose on me any length of absence which your severity can inflict, short of a final separation--Say, Begone for years, but return when these years are over; and, slow and wearily as they must pass away, still the thought that they must at length have their period, will enable me to live through them. Let me, then, conjure thee, Alice, to name a date--to fix a term--to say till _when!_” “Till you can bear to think of me only as a friend and sister.” “That is a sentence of eternal banishment indeed!” said Julian; “it is seeming, no doubt, to fix a term of exile, but attaching to it an impossible condition.” “And why impossible, Julian?” said Alice, in a tone of persuasion; “were we not happier ere you threw the mask from your own countenance, and tore the veil from my foolish eyes? Did we not meet with joy, spend our time happily, and part cheerily, because we transgressed no duty, and incurred no self-reproach? Bring back that state of happy ignorance, and you shall have no reason to call me unkind. But while you form schemes which I know to be visionary, and use language of such violence and passion, you shall excuse me if I now, and once for all, declare, that since Deborah shows herself unfit for the trust reposed in her, and must needs expose me to persecutions of this nature, I will write to my father, that he may fix me another place of residence; and in the meanwhile I will take shelter with my aunt at Kirk-Truagh.” “Hear me, unpitying girl,” said Peveril, “hear me, and you shall see how devoted I am to obedience, in all that I can do to oblige you! You say you were happy when we spoke not on such topics--well--at all expense of my own suppressed feelings, that happy period shall return. I will meet you--walk with you--read with you--but only as a brother would with his sister, or a friend with his friend; the thoughts I may nourish, be they of hope or of despair, my tongue shall not give birth to, and therefore I cannot offend; Deborah shall be ever by your side, and her presence shall prevent my even hinting at what might displease you--only do not make a crime to me of those thoughts which are the dearest part of my existence; for believe me it were better and kinder to rob me of existence itself.”