told me to desert you, I would only clasp you the closer to my heart!

I tell you, my own love, that when your hand is in mine, when your head
rests upon my bosom, when those soft and thrilling eyes shall be fixed
upon my own, when every sigh shall be mingled with my breath, and every
tear be kissed away at the very instant it rises from its source--I tell
you that then you shall only feel that every pang of the past, and every
fear for the future, shall be but a new link to bind us the firmer to
each other. Emily, my life, my love, you cannot, if you would, desert
me. Who can separate the waters which are once united, or divide the
hearts which have met and mingled into one?


Since they had once more met, it will be perceived that Falkland had
adopted a new tone in expressing his passion to Emily. In the book of
guilt another page, branded in a deeper and more burning character, had
been turned. He lost no opportunity of summoning the earthlier emotions
to the support of his cause. He wooed her fancy with the golden language
of poetry, and strove to arouse the latent feelings of her sex by the
soft magic of his voice, and the passionate meaning it conveyed. But at
times there came over him a deep and keen sentiment of remorse; and even,
as his experienced and practised eye saw the moment of his triumph
approach, he felt that the success he was hazarding his own soul and hers
to obtain, might bring him a momentary transport, but not a permanent
happiness. There is always this difference in the love of women and of
men; that in the former, when once admitted, it engrosses all the sources
of thought, and excludes every object but itself; but in the latter, it
is shared with all the former reflections and feelings which the past yet
bequeaths us, and can neither (however powerful be its nature) constitute
the whole of our happiness or woe. The love of man in his maturer years