I do not love him--I do not; and even if I did, to give myself up to a man of whom I know so little, who is not even a Christian, much less a Churchman! Ay! and to give up my will to any man! to become the subject, the slave, of another human being! I, who have worshipped the belief in woman's independence, the hope of woman's enfranchisement, who have felt how glorious it is to live like the angels, single and self-sustained! What if I cut the Gordian knot, and here make, once for all, a vow of perpetual celibacy ?' She flung herself on her knees--she could not collect her thoughts.
'No,' she said, 'I am not prepared for this.

It is too solemn to be undertaken in this miserable whirlwind of passion.

I will fast, and meditate, and go up formally to the little chapel, and there devote myself to God; and, in the meantime, to write at once to the superior of the Beguines; to go to my mother, and tell her once for all--What?
Must I lose him ?--must I give him up?
Not his love--I cannot give up that--would that I could! but no! he will love me for ever.

I know it as well as if an angel told me.

But to give up him! Never to see him! never to hear his voice! never to walk with him among the beech woods any more! Oh, Argemone! Argemone! miserable girl! and is it come to this ?' And she threw herself on the sofa, and hid her face in her hands.
Yes, Argemone, it is come to this; and the best thing you can do, is just what you are doing--to lie there and cry yourself to sleep, while the angels are laughing kindly (if a solemn public, who settles everything for them, will permit them to laugh) at the rickety old windmill of sham-Popery which you have taken for a real giant.
At that same day and hour, as it chanced, Lancelot, little dreaming what the said windmill was grinding for him, was scribbling a hasty and angry answer to a letter of Luke's, which, perhaps, came that very morning in order to put him into a proper temper for the demolishing of windmills.