"Pauline, remember, I have been sorely tried. I would do anything to comfort you. I haven't another wish in my heart but to be of use to you." "Oh, Richard," I cried, bursting into tears afresh, and hiding my eyes, "if you give me up and drive me away from you, I am all alone. There isn't another human being that I love or that cares for me. Dear Richard, do be good to me; do be sorry for me." "I am sorry for you, Pauline; you know that." "And you will take care of me?" I cried, stretching out my arms toward him, with a sudden overwhelming sense of my loneliness and destitution. "Yes, Pauline, to the end of my life or of yours; as if you were my sister or almost my child." "Dear Richard," I whispered, as I buried my face on his arm, "if it were not for you I should not live through this dreadful time. I hope I shall die soon; as soon as I am better. But till I do die, I hope you will be good to me, and love me." And I pressed his hand against my cheek and lips, like the poor, frantic, grief-bewildered child that I was. At this moment there came a sound of movement in the stables: I heard one of the heavy doors thrown open, and a man leading a horse across the stable-floor. (The windows were open and the night was very still.) Richard started, and looked uneasily at his watch, stepping to the door to get the light. "How late is it?" I faltered. "Half-past three," he said, turning his eyes away, as if he could not bear the sight of my face. I do not like to remember the dreadful moments that followed this: the misery that I put upon Richard by my passionate, ungoverned grief. I threw myself upon the floor, I clung to his knees, I prayed him to delay the hour of going--another hour, another day. I said all the wild and frantic things that were in my heart, as he closed the library-door and led me to my room. "Try to say your prayers, Pauline," was all he could answer me. I did try to say them, as I knelt by the window, and saw in the dull, gray dawn, those two carriages drive slowly from the door. Richard went away alone. Kilian indeed came down-stairs just as he was starting. Sophie had awakened, and called him into her room for a few moments. Then he came down, and I saw him get into the carriage alone, and motion the man to drive on, after that other--which stood waiting a few rods farther on. CHAPTER XVIII. A JOURNEY. He, full of modesty and truth, Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought. _Tasso_. Fresh grief can occupy itself With its own recent smart; It feeds itself on outward things, And not on its own heart. _Faber_ A thing which surprises me very much in looking over those days of suffering, is, that during that day a frightful irritability is the emotion that I most remember--an irritability of feeling, not of expression: for I lay quite still upon the bed all day, and only answered, briefly and simply, the questions of Sophie and the maid.