"Yes;--always friends. And now listen to me for I have much to say. I will not tell you again that I love you. You know it, or else you must think me the vainest and falsest of men. It is not only that I love you, but I am so accustomed to concern myself with one thing only, so constrained by the habits and nature of my life to confine myself to single interests, that I cannot as it were escape from my love. I am thinking of it always, often despising myself because I think of it so much. For, after all, let a woman be ever so good,--and you to me are all that is good,--a man should not allow his love to dominate his intellect." "Oh, no!" "I do. I calculate my chances within my own bosom almost as a man might calculate his chances of heaven. I should like you to know me just as I am, the weak and the strong together. I would not win you by a lie if I could. I think of you more than I ought to do. I am sure,--quite sure that you are the only possible mistress of this house during my tenure of it. If I am ever to live as other men do, and to care about the things which other men care for, it must be as your husband." "Pray,--pray do not say that." "Yes; I think that I have a right to say it,--and a right to expect that you should believe me. I will not ask you to be my wife if you do not love me. Not that I should fear aught for myself, but that you should not be pressed to make a sacrifice of yourself because I am your friend and cousin. But I think it is quite possible you might come to love me,--unless your heart be absolutely given away elsewhere." "What am I to say?" "We each of us know of what the other is thinking. If Paul Montague has robbed me of my love--?" "Mr. Montague has never said a word." "If he had, I think he would have wronged me. He met you in my house, and I think must have known what my feelings were towards you." "But he never has." "We have been like brothers together,--one brother being very much older than the other, indeed; or like father and son. I think he should place his hopes elsewhere." "What am I to say? If he have such hope he has not told me. I think it almost cruel that a girl should be asked in that way."