“For one night, Fanny, for only one night, if it be a sacrifice. I am sure you will make that sacrifice rather than give pain to one who has been so studious of your comfort. Miss Crawford’s attentions to you have been—impeccable; and to decline them must have something the air of ingratitude, even though I know it is farthest from your nature. Wear the necklace, as you are engaged to do, to-morrow evening, and let the chain be kept for commoner occasions. This is my advice. I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure. I would not have the shadow of a coolness arise,” he repeated, his voice sinking a little, “between the two dearest objects I have on earth.”

He was gone as he spoke. And Fanny remained to calm herself as best she could. She was one of his two dearest—that must support her. But the other: the first! She had never heard him speak so openly before, and though it told her no more than what she had long perceived, it was a stab, for it told of his own convictions and views. They were decided. He would marry Miss Crawford.

But—had she even been untainted by the dark—did Miss Crawford deserve him? He was deceived in her: he gave her merits which she had not. Her faults were what they had ever been, but he saw them no longer. And he absolutely refused to see the vampire in her.

Till she had shed many tears, Fanny could not subdue her agitation. The dejection which followed could only be relieved by fervent prayers for his happiness—and his safety.

It was Fanny’s intention to try to overcome all that bordered on selfishness, in her affection for Edmund.

To her he could be nothing under any circumstances; nothing dearer than a friend. Why did such a forbidden idea of anything otherwise even occur to her? It ought not to have touched her imagination. She would endeavour to be rational, and to deserve the right of judging of Miss Crawford’s character, by a sound intellect and an honest heart.

She had all the heroism of principle, and was determined to do her duty. But, having also many of the feelings of youth and nature, she seized the scrap of paper on which Edmund had begun writing to her, as a treasure beyond all her hopes. And reading with the tenderest emotion these words, “My very dear Fanny, you must do me the favour to accept,” she locked it up with the chain, as the dearest part of the gift.

It was the only thing approaching a letter, which she had ever received from him. She might never receive another; it was impossible that she ever should receive another so perfectly gratifying in the occasion and the style. Two blessed lines! The enthusiasm of a woman’s love!