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 What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss Keeldar? Have you been with me in spirit when I did not see you? Have you entered into my day-dreams, and beheld my brain labouring at its scheme of a future?"

"She had separated a slip of paper for lighting tapers—a spill, as it is called—into fragments: she threw morsel by morsel into the fire, and stood pensively watching them consume. She did not speak.

How did you learn what you seem to know about my intentions?'

I know nothing: I am only discovering them now: I spoke at hazard.'

"Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will never be again: never take a pupil after Henry and yourself: not again will I sit habitually at another man's table—no more be the appendage of a family. I am now a man of thirty: I have never been free since I was a boy of ten. I have such a thirst for freedom—such a deep passion to know her and call her mine—such a day-desire and night-longing to win her and possess her, I will not refuse to cross the Atlantic for her sake: her I will follow deep into virgin woods. Mine it shall not be to accept a savage girl as a slave—she could not be a wife. I know no white woman whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine: when I call her she will come to my log-house, and she shall fill my arms.'

"She could not hear me speak so unmoved, and she was moved. It was right—I meant to move her.