"But, my sweet Winifred, to die is the doom of all created beings. Many have loved before; and of all who have ever loved, one must survive. It is a sad, it is a painful truth; but it is a most plain and undeniable one. Then why should not this be borne as patiently as the same bereavement by any other means? A long illness would reconcile you to the event! and yet would you wish me to endure lengthened bodily ills? Should you not rather rejoice that I shall thus be spared all the protracted sufferings of sickness, and that, comparatively speaking, I shall thus be exempted from the pains of death; that I shall pass from earth with all my intellects unimpaired, in the full enjoyment of my faculties! Could there be any satisfaction in marking the decaying mind, the enfeebled spirit, the soul waxing weak, as the body sinks under the effects of some wasting malady? Yet how often has the most devoted affection watched all these humiliating and painful harbingers of death, till the mourner has been brought to look upon the dreaded bereavement almost in the light of a blessing? But is there any consolation in this? Would one not rather choose that the memory of the departed should be undimmed, unpolluted by the recollection of mortal decay?" "Your words are beautiful! I love to hear your voice! it thrills like music through my heart! The thoughts are noble, lofty, pure, and holy; but they persuade me not! As I gaze on you, as I listen to you, I only feel the more, that life without you is not life: it is a blank!--a dark and dreary chasm into which I dare not look: that I must, must save you; and that if you love me, you will give heed to me, and that you will agree to what I shall propose." "Oh, Winifred! this is cruel kindness. It is cruel to wean me from the thoughts of death, which I have almost taught myself to love, to lure me back to those of life, which, alas! possesses only too many charms for me!" There was a tenderness in the tone and the manner which gave her hope that she had worked upon him. She felt that love for her, and pity for her sorrows, might at this moment induce him to listen; and she opened to him the plan she had formed for his escape. But she had scarcely detailed her proposed measures, when he vehemently refused to engage in what he thought could not be carried into execution without compromising others. Desperate at the ill-success which attended her efforts, she abandoned herself to grief: she strove not to control her feelings; she wrung her hands, she wept in hopeless agony. Meanwhile he paced the apartment in anguish not less acute. He accused himself of cruelty towards her when he witnessed her desperation; and yet he could not bring himself to agree to measures which he deemed degrading, and in the success of which he placed little reliance. Such moments comprise a greater sum of suffering than is spread over many a common life. At length he stopped before her.