Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/564

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Nov. 5. 1864.]
ONCE A WEEK.
549

she had won my heart irrevocably; and that whether I was doomed to be the most miserable or the happiest of human beings, my love for her could never change. While I spoke she listened silently; and even when I had finished my ardent speech she uttered no word for many moments. There was a long pause of utter stillness; and then she spoke in a low voice, clear, though tremulous.

“Captain Stapleton, I have long determined never to marry.” (How my heart sank.) “To live all my life with Denis has, since I grew up and before it, been my fixed resolution. Surrounded as he is in Tipperary by hourly dangers, I could not bear the idea of being separated from him; and as my fortune, I am thankful to say, is very ample, I have no such incentive as most women unhappily have, to urge me to resign a single life, whether inclined to do so or not. Should Denis marry, I have always
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