Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

10. CHAPTER X (continued)

'Now, Mr. Markham,' said she, with a kind of desperate calmness, 'I must tell you plainly that I cannot do with this. I like your company, because I am alone here, and your conversation pleases me more than that of any other person; but if you cannot be content to regard me as a friend - a plain, cold, motherly, or sisterly friend - I must beg you to leave me now, and let me alone hereafter: in fact, we must be strangers for the future.'

'I will, then - be your friend, or brother, or anything you wish, if you will only let me continue to see you; but tell me why I cannot be anything more?'

There was a perplexed and thoughtful pause.

'Is it in consequence of some rash vow?'

'It is something of the kind,' she answered. 'Some day I may tell you, but at present you had better leave me; and never, Gilbert, put me to the painful necessity of repeating what I have just now said to you,' she earnestly added, giving me her hand in serious kindness. How sweet, how musical my own name sounded in her mouth!

'I will not,' I replied. 'But you pardon this offence?'

'On condition that you never repeat it.'

'And may I come to see you now and then?'

'Perhaps - occasionally; provided you never abuse the privilege.'

'I make no empty promises, but you shall see.'

'The moment you do our intimacy is at an end, that's all.'

'And will you always call me Gilbert? It sounds more sisterly, and it will serve to remind me of our contract.'