night's debt to you."

"Dear, noble girl!" said Clifford, while there writhed upon his lips one
of those smiles of powerful sarcasm that sometimes distorted his
features, and thrillingly impressed upon Lucy a resemblance to one very
different in reputation and character to her lover,--"do not attribute my
misfortunes to so petty a source; it is not money that I shall want while
I live, though I shall to my last breath remember this delicacy in you,
and compare it with certain base remembrances in my own mind. Yes! all
past thoughts and recollections will make me hereafter worship you even
more than I do now; while in your heart they will--unless Heaven grant me
one prayer--make you scorn and detest me!"

"For mercy's sake, do not speak thus!" said Lucy, gazing in indistinct
alarm upon the dark and working features of her lover. "Scorn, detest
you! Impossible! How could I, after the remembrance of last night?"

"Ay! of last night," said Clifford, speaking through his ground teeth,--
"there is much in that remembrance to live long in both of us; but you--
you--fair angel" (and all harshness and irony vanishing at once from his
voice and countenance, yielded to a tender and deep sadness, mingled with
a respect that bordered on reverence),--"you never could have dreamed of
more than pity for one like me,--you never could have stooped from your
high and dazzling purity to know for me one such thought as that which
burns at my heart for you,--you--Yes, withdraw your hand, I am not
worthy to touch it!" And clasping his own hands before his face, he
became abruptly silent; but his emotions were but ill-concealed, and Lucy
saw the muscular frame before her heaved and convulsed by passions which
were more intense and rending because it was only for a few moments that
they conquered his self-will and struggled into vent.