The String of Pearls (1850), p. 343

memory of his affection for her. I saw in her such child-like purity of mind, such generosity of disposition, such enchanting humanity of soul, that I could not but love her.
"Yes, yes," gasped Arabella. "Yes."
"Will you pardon me for saying all this to you?"
"Oh yes. Go on—go on, unless you have said all?"
"I have not."
"Then, then you have only to add that you love her still?"
"Yes, but—"
Arabella's heart beat painfully.
"Ah," she said, "has true love any reservations? You love her, and yet you have something else to say."
"I have. I love her still. But it is not as I loved her. She has convinced me of her constancy to her first affection, that—that—"
"Yes, yes."
"That being so convinced, I now love her, but with that love a brother might feel for a dear sister, and I almost think it was a kind of preparation to try to awaken in the smouldering fires of her lost love a new passion. She has made me feel that the love of woman once truly awakened is an undying passion and can know no change—no extinction."
"True. Oh, how true!"
"I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girl—one in whom there are no evil passions, no world-wise failings nor earthly varieties—is touched by the holy flame of affection, it may consume her being, but it never can be extinguished."
Arabella burst into tears.
"Love," added the colonel, "may be trodden down, but like truth it can never be trodden out!"
"Never! never!" sobbed Arabella. "Let me go now! Oh, sir, let me go home now?"
"One moment!"
She trembled, but she sat still.
"Only a moment, Arabella, while I tell you that man's love is different from this. That man can reason upon his affections, and that when the first beauty and excellence upon which he may cast his eyes is denied to his arms, he can look for equal beauty—equal excellence—equal charms of mind and person in another, and—"
Arabella tried to go, but somehow she felt spell-bound and could not rise from that garden seat.
"And," added the colonel, "with as pure a passion, man can make an idol of her who can be his, ashe approached her who could not.—Miss Wilmot, I love you!"
"Oh, no, no—Johanna."
"I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I loved Johanna. If she had been fancy-free and would have looked upon me with eyes of favour, I would have made her my wife ; but such was not to be, and for the same qualities that I loved her I love you. I am afraid I have not explained my feelings well."
"Oh, yes. That is, I don't know."
"And now, Miss Wilmot, will you allow me to hope that what I have said to you may not be all in vain? That—"
"No, no."
"No?"
"Allow me to go, now. My mind is too full of the fate of Johanna even to permit me to reject in the language taught—"
"Reject?"
"Yes," she said, " reject. I wish you all the happiness this world can afford to you, Colonel Jeffery."