Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/205

 Oh,' cried Anne, eagerly, 'I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by women. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion and to every domestic forbearance so long as—if I may be allowed the expression—so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hope is gone.'

"She could not immediately have uttered another sentence: her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed Their attention was called towards the others.

"Mrs. Croft left them, and Captain Wentworth, having sealed his letter with great rapidity, was indeed ready, and had even a hurried, agitated air, which showed impatience to be gone. Anne knew not how to understand it. She had the kindest 'Good morning; God bless you' from Captain Harville, but from him not a word or a look! He had passed out of the room without a look! She had only time, however, to move closer to the table where he had been writing, when footsteps were heard returning. The door opened; it was himself. He begged their pardon, but he had forgotten his gloves; and instantly crossing the room to the writing-table, and standing with his back towards Mrs. Musgrove, he drew out a letter from under the scattered paper, placed it before