I am not called upon to give my hand to another, while my heart is solely thine." "Then wherefore join that harsh word 'sin,' with such pure love, my Marie?
Why send me from you wretched and most lonely, when no human power divides us ?" "No human power!--alas! alas!--a father's curse--an offended God--these are too awful to encounter, Arthur.

Oh do not try me more; leave me to my fate, called down by my own weakness, dearest Arthur.
If you indeed love me, tempt me not by such fond words; they do but render duty harder.

Oh, wherefore have you loved me!" But such suffering tone, such broken words, were not likely to check young Stanley's solicitations.

Again and again he urged her, at least to say what fatal secret so divided them; did he but know it, it might be all removed.

Marie listened to him for several minutes, with averted head and in unbroken silence; and when she did look on him again, he started at her marble paleness and the convulsive quivering of her lips, which for above a minute prevented the utterance of a word.
"Be it so," she said at length; "you shall know this impassable barrier.