( 23 )
"Why this dreadful language?" cried Harleigh, with mingled impatience and grief: "Can the impression of a cumpulsatory engagement—or what other may be the mystery that it envelopes? Will you not be generous enough to relieve a perplexity that now tortures me? Is it too much for a man lost to himself for your sake,—lost he knows not how,—knows not to whom,—to be indulged with some little explanation, where, and how, he has placed all his hopes?—Is this too much to ask?"
"Too much?" repeated Ellis, with quickness: "O no! no! Were my confidence to depend upon my sense of what I owe to your generous esteem, your noble trust in a helpless Wanderer,—known to you solely through your benevolence,—were my opinion—and my gratitude my guides,—it would be difficult, indeed, to say what enquiries you could make, that I could refuse to satisfy;—what you could ask, that I ought not to answer! but alas!———"
