Alice was pained. "Indeed, indeed, Edward, you do me wrong," she said. "You are not distasteful to me. I do regard you with complaisance. You know that your society is anything but disagreeable to me; but yet, I cannot love you as you ought to be loved, as you have a right to be loved; nor can any attention, nor any kindness which you could show me, nor any time, make a difference in this respect. We have known each other from our childhood. You have shown me every degree of kindness, every sort of attention that any one can show. You have gained my esteem and my regard; I have always felt towards you almost as a sister; and perhaps that very feeling may have prevented me from feeling more."
"Nay, but, Alice, still hear me!" replied Lord Harold, earnestly-- "hear me, hear me patiently; for remember, I am pleading for something more than life--for the whole happiness of life! You say you have regarded me as a brother, that you esteem me, that you do not dislike my society; were I to become your husband, might not these feelings grow warmer--stronger?"
"They might, or they might not," answered Alice; "but, Edward, I must not, I cannot, I will not put them to the test. There is but one thing that will ever induce me to marry any man--loving him deeply, strongly, and entirely: loving him with my whole heart."
"And is there such a man?" demanded Lord Harold, suddenly, and at the same time fixing his eyes keenly upon her.
Alice lifted hers in return, full, but somewhat reproachfully to his countenance. "Edward," she said, "that is a question you have no right to put! However," she added, after a moment's pause, "because we have been companions from our childhood, because I do really esteem you, I will answer your question. There is no one who has such a hold of me; and till I meet with such, I will never marry any one."
"Then, dear Alice, there is yet hope!" he exclaimed.
"You construe what I have said very wrongly," she replied. "Do not! Oh! do not, Lord Harold, by taking words of kindness for words of encouragement, force me to speak that harshly which I would soften as much as may be."
"Nay, Alice," answered Lord Harold, "your lesson comes rather late to produce any benefit to me. I fear that I may have mistaken, before now, words and acts of mere kindness for words and acts of encouragement. I have--I acknowledge it--I have entertained hopes; I have thought that Alice sometimes smiled upon me."