"Do you know, Mr. Finn,"
she continued, "that sometimes I am very angry with myself about
you."
"Then it must be because you have been too kind to me."
"It is because I fear that I have done much to injure you. From
the first day that I knew you,--do you remember, when we were
talking here, in this very room, about the beginning of the Reform
Bill;--from that day I wished that you should come among us and be
one of us."
"I have been with you, to my infinite satisfaction,--while it
lasted."
"But it has not lasted, and now I fear that it has done you harm."
"Who can say whether it has been for good or evil? But of this I am
sure you will be certain,--that I am very grateful to you for all the
goodness you have shown me." Then again he was silent.
She did not know what it was that she wanted, but she did desire some
expression from his lips that should be warmer than an expression of
gratitude. An expression of love,--of existing love,--she would have
felt to be an insult, and would have treated it as such. Indeed, she
knew that from him no such insult could come. But she was in that
morbid, melancholy state of mind which requires the excitement
of more than ordinary sympathy, even though that sympathy be all
painful; and I think that she would have been pleased had he referred
to the passion for herself which he had once expressed.
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