“Adolphus,” said Fanny, rising suddenly from her seat, more for the sake of turning round so as to look at him, than with the object of getting from him, “Adolphus, you are joking with me.” “No, by heavens then,” said he, following her, and catching her hand; “no man in Ireland is this moment more in earnest: no man more anxiously, painfully in earnest. Oh, Fanny! why should you suppose that I am not so? How can you think I would joke on such a subject? No: hear me,” he said, interrupting her, as she prepared to answer him, “hear me out, and then you will know how truly I am in earnest.” “No, not a word further!” almost shrieked Fanny—“Not a word more, Adolphus—not a syllable; at any rate till you have heard me. Oh, you have made me so miserable!” and Fanny burst into tears. “I have spoken too suddenly to you, Fanny; I should have given you more time—I should have waited till—” “No, no, no,” said Fanny, “it is not that—but yes; what you say is true: had you waited but one hour—but ten minutes—I should have told you that which would for ever have prevented all this. I should have told you, Adolphus, how dearly, how unutterably I love another.” And Fanny again sat down, hid her face in her handkerchief against the corner of the summer-house, and sobbed and cried as though she were broken-hearted: during which time Kilcullen stood by, rather perplexed as to what he was to say next, and beginning to be very doubtful as to his ultimate success. “Dear Fanny!” he said, “for both our sakes, pray try to be collected: all my future happiness is at this moment at stake. I did not bring you here to listen to what I have told you, without having become too painfully sure that your hand, your heart, your love, are necessary to my happiness. All my hopes are now at stake; but I would not, if I could, secure my own happiness at the expense of yours. Pray believe me, Fanny, when I say that I love you completely, unalterably, devotedly: it is necessary now for my own sake that I should say as much as that. Having told you so much of my own heart, let me hear what you wish to tell me of yours. Oh, that I might have the most distant gleam of hope, that it would ever return the love which fills my own!” “It cannot, Adolphus—it never can,” said she, still trying to hide her tears. “Oh, why should this bitter misery have been added!” She then rose quickly from her seat, wiped her eyes, and, pushing back her hair, continued, “I will no longer continue to live such a life as I have done—miserable to myself, and the cause of misery to others. Adolphus,—I love Lord Ballindine. I love him with, I believe, as true and devoted a love as woman ever felt for a man. I valued, appreciated, gloried in your friendship; but I can never return your love. My heart is wholly, utterly, given away; and I would not for worlds receive it back, till I learn from his own mouth that he has ceased to love me.”