“I am only grieving you by continuing the subject,” he said; “and therefore grant me your forgiveness, dearest Ellen, and your final answer to Cameron, and it shall be resumed no more.”

“I have nothing to forgive, Herbert,” replied Ellen, somewhat mournfully.

She sat a few minutes longer, in saddened thought, gazing on the open letter, and then quitted the room and sought her own.  She softly closed the door, secured it, and then sinking on a low seat beside her couch, buried her pale face in her hands, and for a few minutes remained overwhelmed by that intensity of secret and tearless suffering.  It was called forth afresh by this interview with her cousin:  to hear his lips plead thus eloquently the cause of another; to hear him say that perhaps she was one of those who would never love to its full extent.  When her young heart felt bursting beneath the load of deep affection pressing there, one sweet alone mingled in that cup of bitterness, Herbert guessed not, suspected not the truth.  She had succeeded well in concealing the anguish called forth by unrequited love, and she would struggle on.

“Never, never shall it be known that I have given this rebellious heart to one who seeks it not.  No, no, that tale shall live and die with me; no one shall know how low I have fallen.  Poor Walter! he will think I cannot feel for his unreturned affection, when I know too well its pang; and why should I not be happy with him, why live on in lingering wretchedness, when, perhaps as a wife, new duties might rouse me from this lethargy?  Away from Herbert I might forget—­be reconciled; but swear to love Walter when I have no love to give—­return his affection by indifference—­oh, no, no, I will not be so guilty.”

Ellen again hid her eyes in her hands, and thought long and painfully.  Pride urged her to accept young Cameron, but every better feeling revolted from it.  She started from that posture of despondency, and, with a bursting heart, answered Walter’s eloquent appeal.  Kindness breathed in every line she wrote—­regard for his welfare—­esteem for his character; but she calmly yet decidedly rejected his addresses.  She was grieved, she said, most deeply grieved that anything in her manner towards him had encouraged his hopes.  She had acted but as she felt, looking on the companion of her early childhood, the son of her father’s and her own kind friend, as a brother and a friend, in which light she hoped he would ever permit her to regard him.  Hope found no resting-place in her letter, but it breathed such true and gentle sympathy and kindness, that Walter could not but feel soothed, even in the midst of disappointment.  Ellen paused ere she sealed her letter; she could not bear to act, even in this matter, without confiding in her aunt; that Captain Cameron had proposed and been rejected, she felt assured, report would soon convey to her ears.  Why not then seek her herself?  The task of writing had calmed her heart.  Taking, therefore, Walter’s letter and her own, she repaired to her aunt’s dressing-room, and fortunately found her alone.  Mrs. Hamilton looked earnestly at her as she entered, but she made no observation till, in compliance with Ellen’s request, she perused the letters offered to her.