Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/178

 madness, you will do more by making me the promise I ask of you, than Elizabeth can do for me with all her power."

"Ask me anything for which you can allege reason," said Tressilian; "but demand not of me--"

"Oh, limit not your boon, dear Edmund!" exclaimed the Countess--"you once loved that I should call you so--limit not your boon to reason; for my case is all madness, and frenzy must guide the counsels which alone can aid me."

"If you speak thus wildly," said Tressilian, astonishment again overpowering both his grief and his resolution, "I must believe you indeed incapable of thinking or acting for yourself."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed, sinking on one knee before him, "I am not mad--I am but a creature unutterably miserable, and, from circumstances the most singular, dragged on to a precipice by the arm of him who thinks he is keeping me from it--even by yours, Tressilian--by yours, whom I have honoured, respected--all but loved--and yet loved, too--loved, too, Tressilian--though not as you wished to be."

There was an energy, a self-possession, an abandonment in her voice and manner, a total resignation of herself to his generosity, which, together with the kindness of her expressions to himself, moved him deeply. He raised her, and, in broken accents, entreated her to be comforted.

"I cannot," she said, "I will not be comforted, till you grant me my request! I will speak as plainly as I dare. I am now awaiting the