'Dare, then, to be ingenuous, and save me, Harleigh,--if with truth you can, the depression, the shame, of being rejected from impenetrable apathy! I ought, I know, to be above such narrow punctilio, and to allow the independence of your liberty; but I did not fall into the refining hands of philosophy, early enough to eradicate wholly from my mind, all dregs of the clinging first impressions of habit and education. Say, then, Harleigh, if it be in your power so to say, that it is not a free heart which thus coldly disdains me; that it is not a disengaged mind which refuses me its sympathy! that it is not to personal aversion, but to some previous regard, that I owe your insensibility! To me the event will be the same, but the failure will be less ignoble.' 'How difficult, O Elinor!--how next to impossible such a statement makes every species of answer!' 'At a period, Harleigh, awful and finite to our intercourse like this, fall not into what I have hitherto, with so much reverence, seen you, upon all occasions, superiour to, subterfuge and evasion! Be yourself, Harleigh!--what can you be more noble? and plainly, simply let me into the cause, since you cannot conceal from me the effect. Speak, then! Is it but in the sullen majesty of masculine superiority, 'Lord of yourself, uncumber'd by a wife,'[8] that you fly all marriage-bonds, with insulated, haughty singleness? or is it that, deceived by my apparent engagement, your heart never asked itself the worth of mine, till already all its own pulsations beat for another object?' [Footnote 8: Dryden.] Harleigh tried to smile, tried to rally, tried to divert the question; all in vain; Elinor became but more urgent, and more disordered. 'O Harleigh!' she cried, 'is it too much to ask this one mark of your confidence, for a creature who has cast her whole destiny at your feet? Speak!--if you would not devote me to distraction! Speak!--if you would not consign me to immediate delirium!' 'And what,' cried he, trembling at her vehemence, 'would you have me say?' 'That it is not Elinor whom you despise--but another whom you love.' 'Elinor! are you mad?' 'No, Harleigh, no!--but I am wild with anguish to dive into the full depth of my disgrace; to learn whether it were inevitable, from the very nature of things,--from personal antipathy,--gloss it over as you will with esteem, regard, and professions;--or whether you had found that you, also, had a soul, before mine was laid open to you. No evasion--no delay!' continued she, with augmenting impetuosity; 'you have promised to grant my boon,--speak, Harleigh, speak!--was it my direful fate, or your insuperable antipathy?' 'It was surely not antipathy!' cried he, in a tone the most soothing; yet with a look affrighted, and unconscious, till he had spoken, of the inference to which his words might be liable.