Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/262

254 spoke; and while his heart melted within him as he felt it, and knew his own desperate and unredeemed condition, he added,

"Every one courts you—the proud, the rich, the young, the high-born, all are at your feet! you will select one of that number for your husband, may he watch over you as I would have done!—love you as I do, he cannot! Yes, I repeat it!" continued Clifford, vehemently, "he cannot! None amidst the gay, happy, silken crowd of your equals and followers, can feel for you that single and overruling passion, which makes you to me, what all combined—country, power, wealth, reputation, an honest name, peace, common safety, the quiet of the common air, alike the least blessing and the greatest, are to all others! Once more, may God in heaven watch over you, and preserve you! I tear myself on leaving you from all that cheers, or blesses, or raises, or might have saved me!—Farewell!"

The hand which Lucy had relinquished to her strange suitor was pressed ardently to his lips,