"Unmaidenly! Oh, Lilias, could you have seen the noble dignity of her fearless innocence in that hour, you would have felt that never had the impress of a purer heart been stamped upon a virgin brow."
"'Have you understood and well considered this my settled purpose never to be your wife?' she continued.
"'Then speak out, my soul,' she exclaimed, lifting up her eyes as if inspired. 'Tell him that there is a righteous Providence over the life that immolates itself for virtue's sake! and that another existence hath been sent to meet it in the glorious sacrifice, in order that this one may yield up its treasures to the heart that would have stript itself of all! Richard, Richard Sydney, you have made a holocaust of your life, and lo! by the gift of another life, it is repaid to you.'
"Slowly she knelt down, and took my hand in both of hers, while with an aspect calm and firm, and a voice unfaltering, she spoke this vow:
'I, Aletheia Randolph, do most solemnly vow and promise to give myself, in heart and soul, unto the last day of my life, wholly and irrevocably, to Richard Sydney. I devote to him, and him alone, my whole heart, my whole life, and my whole love. I do forever forswear, for his sake, all earthly ties, all earthly affections, and all earthly hopes. I will love him only, live for him only, and make it my one happiness to minister to him in all things as faithfully and tenderly as though I were bound to him by the closest of human bonds--in spite of all obstacles and the world's blame--in defiance of all allurements, which might induce me to abandon him. I will seek to abide ever as near to him as may be, that I may bestow on him all the care and tender watchfulness which the most faithful wife could offer; but absent or present, living or dying, no human being on this earth shall ever have known such an entire devotion as I will give to him till the last breath pass from this heart in death!'
"I was speechless, Lilias--speechless with something almost of horror at the sacrifice she was making! I strove to withdraw my hand--I could have died to save her from thus immolating herself; but she clung to me, and a deadly paleness spread itself over her countenance as she felt my movement.