Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/164

154 the spirit against the flesh; where both will behold the same glorious truths, and drink exalted and supreme felicity from the same fountain of light and goodness—that being whom both will worship with the same intensity of holy ardour, and where pure and happy creatures both will love with the same divine affection? If you cannot, never write to me!"

"Helen, I can, if faith would never fail."

"Now, then," exclaimed she, "while this hope is strong within us—"

"We will part," I cried. "You shall not have the pain of another effort to dismiss me: I will go at once; but—"

I did not put my request in words: she understood it instinctively and this time she yielded too—or rather, there was nothing so deliberate as requesting or yielding in the matter: there was a sudden impulse that neither could resist. One moment I stood and looked into her face, the next I held her to my heart, and we seemed to grow together in a close embrace from which