"Not an hour--not a minute--not an instant, or--_for ever_! Young sir, you have already stayed too long, if you stay not always. Leave me to dream of you, and to die. The thorn is in my heart; it may kill me gradually. Go. Why, sir, have you looked upon me as man never before looked? Why, why have you mingled your false tears with mine, that were so true--and, oh, so loving! But what am I, who thus speak so proudly to a being whom, if I did not know he was treacherous, I should think an angel? (_Un des bons esprits_.) I, a poor, weak, ignorant girl of colour--born of a slave, to a slavery--whose only ambition was to have been loved, loved for a short, short while--for know, that I am to die early--I should not have troubled you long. But you are too good for me--I was a presumptuous fool. Go, and at once, and take with you all that I have to give--the blessing of a young-born bonds-woman." All this time she had stood firmly and nearly motionless, with her hands folded beneath her heaving bosom, at some distance from me. I approached her with extended arms, and had some such foolish rhapsody on my tongue as "Beautiful daughter of the sun," for I had already contemplated her under a new character, when, retreating and waving me from her, she continued: "Already too much of this--let me die by cruelty rather than by caresses, which are the worst of cruelty. I feel a new spirit living within me. I am a child no more. Yesterday I should have crouched before you, as one degraded, as I ought to do. You have pressed me to your bosom--you have spoken to me as your equal--even your tears have bathed my brow. You have ennobled me. Oh! it is a happiness and a great glory. I, formerly so humble, command you to go--go, dear, dear, Ralph. You will not kill me quite by going _now_, therefore, be generous, and go." I was already sufficiently in love, and began to feel ashamed of myself; for not having as yet caught a little of her enthusiasm.