“The feeling of my own unworthiness as I looked upon you, as I watched your dimmed eye and your wasted form, was terrible to me, for I could not help loving you. When you were better, I tried to tear the idol from my soul. I could not; it had become part of my being. I was banished from your presence. Every day of absence was a day of misery. I would not even have you know what I endured. There was no hope, no comfort for me. But I had been so base and wicked that I deserved to suffer. I could reproach no one but myself.” “Why need you indulge in this morbid self-condemnation? You have confessed your error; you have atoned for it as far as you can. Why need you repine any more?” “Because my error has robbed me of all the joys of life,” replied the doctor, in the bitterness of desperation. “That cannot be.” “It can be; it is.” “Your profession still enables you to do good to your fellow-beings, and your kind heart finds abundant objects of charity. You can be happy in being true to yourself and useful to others.” Dr. Lynch was surprised into an expression of contempt, but it was instantly supplanted by his sad look of humiliation and self-abasement. “You did not quite understand me. I have all these joys, and they are joys indeed. I am human, and therefore selfish. That which I have regarded as the greatest joy of earth has fled from my grasp, if it were ever within my reach.” Julia knew what he meant, and her cheek betrayed her consciousness. “If you desire any selfish joy, you should be willing to dispense with it. We should not repine because we cannot have all that we desire in this world; that is the common lot of humanity.” “What I desire is absolutely necessary to save me from hopeless misery.” “I trust not.” “Miss Hungerford, I have been self-banished from this house for your sake.” “For my sake!” “Truly for your sake.” “I should always have been glad to see you.” “The feeling that I was not worthy to come into your presence has made me an exile from the society which I have longed for, pined for. I had fully resolved, bitter and terrible as was the fate to which I doomed myself, never again to see you.” “Why should you?” “Because I love you! You spurn me; you shrink from me!” exclaimed the doctor, with passionate earnestness. Julia did not move, did not start, did not shrink. As she had no feeling of disgust, she did not manifest any. The suitor was poetic, rather dramatic, in his demonstrations. Julia looked anxious, troubled, rather than agitated. “I am sure, Dr. Lynch, no one of our family, least of all myself, regards you with aversion. We are weighed down with obligations to you; and if we were so disposed, we could not afford to think unkindly of you.” “You are noble and generous, and your generosity makes my error all the more loathsome to me. I have never ceased to feel your kindness and generosity; but I could not tax it to the extent of compelling you to tolerate one so base and despicable as myself.”