Oh! I love her, Aunt Ada," said he, passionately--"love her with
all the energy and strength of my father's race, and all the doating
tenderness of my mother's. I could have told her long ago, before my love
had grown to its present towering strength, but craft set a seal upon my
lips, and bid me be silent until her heart was fully mine, and then nothing
could part us; yet now even, when sure of her affections, the dread that
her love would not stand the test, compels me to shrink more than ever from
the disclosure."
"But, Clarence, you are not acting generously; I know your conscience does
not approve your actions."
"Don't I know that?" he answered, almost fiercely; "yet I dare not tell--I
must shut this secret in my bosom, where it gnaws, gnaws, gnaws, until it
has almost eaten my heart away. Oh, I've thought of that, time and again;
it has kept me awake night after night, it haunts me at all hours; it is
breaking down my health and strength--wearing my very life out of me; no
escaped galley-slave ever felt more than I do, or lived in more constant
fear of detection: and yet I must nourish this tormenting secret, and keep
it growing in my breast until it has crowded out every honourable and manly
feeling; and then, perhaps, after all my sufferings and sacrifice of
candour and truth, out it will come at last, when I least expect or think
of it.
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