Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

53. CHAPTER LIII (continued)

'Now, are you going?' said she.

'I will if - if I must.'

'You are changed,' persisted she - 'you are grown either very proud or very indifferent.'

'I am neither, Helen - Mrs. Huntingdon. If you could see my heart - '

'You must be one, - if not both. And why Mrs. Huntingdon? - why not Helen, as before?'

'Helen, then - dear Helen!' I murmured. I was in an agony of mingled love, hope, delight, uncertainty, and suspense.

'The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart,' said she; 'would you take it away and leave me here alone?'

'Would you give me your hand too, if I asked it?'

'Have I not said enough?' she answered, with a most enchanting smile. I snatched her hand, and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly checked myself, and said, -

'But have you considered the consequences?'

'Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud to take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my worldly goods.'

Stupid blockhead that I was! - I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but dared not believe in so much joy, and yet restrained myself to say, -

'But if you should repent!'

'It would be your fault,' she replied: 'I never shall, unless you bitterly disappoint me. If you have not sufficient confidence in my affection to believe this, let me alone.'

'My darling angel - my own Helen,' cried I, now passionately kissing the hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, 'you never shall repent, if it depend on me alone. But have you thought of your aunt?' I trembled for the answer, and clasped her closer to my heart in the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.