Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/241

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DUTY AND INCLINATION.
239

her, as if reading her inmost thoughts. She could not support that gaze, succeeded by one of such melting tenderness—a look that might have spoken volumes, and might have relieved her of every disquietude short only of language itself; it would have told her that he lived but in her. He asked himself, "Is it the parting from my little Rose that occasions such affectionate regret?" Powerful as were his own feelings, almost tempting him to throw himself at her feet, and make a full acknowledgment of his unvaried and never-ceasing love; yet his recollections of Harcourt, and circumstances therewith connected, the certainty of his expected arrival in England, restrained his utterance, threw a sort of spell over him, enchained by a species of self-command insupportably agonizing.

"Tell me, thou syren Hope, deceiver, say,
    Where is the promised period of my woes?
Full three long lingering years have roll'd away,
    And yet I weep, a stranger to repose."

He flung himself into a chair. The benign Dr. Lovesworth observed the internal conflict in both, but most in Douglas, and felt almost persuaded as to the cause; but delicacy forbad his interference.

"My good Doctor," at length said Douglas falteringly, "I am not quite so well to-day, and though I may appear whimsical in not having sooner yielded to your entreaty, yet I will do myself the pleasure of spending another day with you."

How soul-reviving was the glance he next caught