“Oh, Helen! my own noble beautiful one, my life’s treasure, it will be death to me to part with you. I cannot, will not, go: I will submit to any sacrifice rather. I will not be torn from you, for, in truth, it will break my heart.” “Hugh, dearest, do not give way thus,” she rejoined, as her youthful companion, under the intense pressure of his feelings, suffered his head to fall upon her neck, and sobbed passionately; “this is not like you, Hugh: I have seen you brave enough in desperate peril--come, be brave now. Remember you are making yourself unhappy upon a surmise only.” “Would I could view it only as a surmise, Helen,” he returned, sadly. “Unhappily, I have too much occasion for faith in the presentiment which oppresses me.” “Mere childishness, Hugh! We have parted before, but only to meet again, and with increased happiness. You quitted me hopefully, you have returned to me joyously; why not again?” “It is clear, Helen,” he said, raising up his head, and dashing away the tear which yet trembled on his cheek, “that you can contemplate a separation with calmness and firmness.” “In expectation of meeting you soon again, certainly,” she replied. His quick ear detected a slight coolness, and a little impatience in the tone. “But in expectation of not soon meeting again?” he asked, sharply and with misgiving. “Why imagine that which is not likely to happen?” she returned, pettishly. “I have told you that it _will_ happen.” “Hugh, I do not comprehend what of late has possessed you,” she retorted in the same fretful voice. “You have suffered the most ridiculous fancies and chimeras to seize upon your brain, and you not only make yourself miserable, but you seem to wish to compel everybody else to become so.” “Helen, you wrong me.” “Indeed, I fear I do not. Even to-night, when you must have been conscious that to accomplish a meeting with you was to me next to an impossibility, you insisted upon my complying with your request, and you bring me here only to entertain me with a string of doubts and fears, which are not worthy of you.” He started, and released her hand, of which, until now, he had retained possession. “You do not love me, Helen!” he exclaimed, passionately, as he recoiled from her. “Not love you, Hugh,” she replied, throwing up her head angrily; “you are ungrateful, sir. Ask your reason. At what sacrifice have I paused for you? You, at least, have had proof that my love for you was of no ordinary character; you----” “Oh, Helen!” he cried falling upon his knees before her, “pardon me, forgive me! I am frenzied at the prospect of losing you. I do love you so fondly, so dearly, so madly, that death in any shape seems to me preferable to being torn from you for years. You are my heart’s idol, its worship--my adoration; and if I am captious, full of strange conceptions and dread misgivings, attribute it alone to my passion for you, my Helen, my beloved!”