Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

34. CHAPTER XXXIV (continued)

'Yes, yes!' cried she eagerly, starting up from her reclining posture. 'I want to know if you will tell Lord Lowborough?'

'Suppose I do?'

'Well, if you are disposed to publish the matter, I cannot dissuade you, of course - but there will be terrible work if you do - and if you don't, I shall think you the most generous of mortal beings - and if there is anything in the world I can do for you - anything short of - ' she hesitated.

'Short of renouncing your guilty connection with my husband, I suppose you mean?' said I.

She paused, in evident disconcertion and perplexity, mingled with anger she dared not show.

'I cannot renounce what is dearer than life,' she muttered, in a low, hurried tone. Then, suddenly raising her head and fixing her gleaming eyes upon me, she continued earnestly: 'But, Helen - or Mrs. Huntingdon, or whatever you would have me call you - will you tell him? If you are generous, here is a fitting opportunity for the exercise of your magnanimity: if you are proud, here am I - your rival - ready to acknowledge myself your debtor for an act of the most noble forbearance.'

'I shall not tell him.'

'You will not!' cried she, delightedly. 'Accept my sincere thanks, then!'

She sprang up, and offered me her hand. I drew back.

'Give me no thanks; it is not for your sake that I refrain. Neither is it an act of any forbearance: I have no wish to publish your shame. I should be sorry to distress your husband with the knowledge of it.'

'And Milicent? will you tell her?'

'No: on the contrary, I shall do my utmost to conceal it from her. I would not for much that she should know the infamy and disgrace of her relation!'