( 408 )
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,"[1]
that you fly all marriage-bonds, with insulated, haughty singleness? or is it that, deceived by my apparent engage-
