this desperate step, without hearkening to its objections, without weighing its consequences!"

She could enter, she said, into no discussion; and prepared to depart.

"Impossible!" cried he, with energy; "I cannot let you go!—I cannot, without a struggle, resign myself to irremediable despair!"

Ellis, recovered now from the impression caused by his first appearance, with a steady voice, and sedate air, said, "This is a language, Sir,—you know it well,—to which I cannot, must not listen. It is as useless, therefore, as it is painful, to renew it. I beseech you to believe in the sincerity of what I have already been obliged to say, and to spare yourself—to spare, shall I add, me?—all further oppressive conflicts."

A sigh burst from her heart, but she strove to look unmoved.

"If you are generous enough to share, even in the smallest degree,"