Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/251

Rh them. I would give my life to save you, if I might."

"Would you indeed?—No!"

"Most willingly, I would."

"Ah! that's because you think yourself more fit to die!"

There was a painful pause. He was evidently plunged in gloomy reflections, but while I pondered for something to say, that might benefit without alarming him, Hattersley, whose mind had been pursuing almost the same course, broke silence with,—

"I say, Huntingdon, I would send for a parson, of some sort—If you didn't like the vicar, you know, you could have his curate, or somebody else."

"No; none of them can benefit me if she can't," was the answer. And the tears gushed from his eyes as he earnestly exclaimed,—"Oh, Helen, if I had listened to you, it never would have come to this! And if I had heard you