( 369 )
offering even the most trivial assistance, where I would devote with eagerness my life?—You are unhappy,—you make me wretched, and you will neither bestow nor accept the consolation of sympathy? You see me resigned to sue only for your friendship:—why should you thus inflexibly withhold it? Is it—answer me sincerely!—is it my honour that you doubt?—"
He coloured, as if angry with himself even for the surmize; and Ellis raised her eyes, with a vivacity that reproached the question; but dropt them almost instantaneously.
"That generous look," he continued, "revives, re-assures me. From this moment, then, I will forego all pretensions beyond those of a friend. I am come to you completely with that intention. Madness, indeed,—but for the circumstances which robbed me of self-command,—madness alone could have formed any other, in an ignorance so profound as that in which I am held
