, resentment and
despair.

He allowed the force of the first; but as to the other, he would not
suppose it a reason for her delaying her marriage.

'Poor Delamere,' said he, 'is of a temper which opposition and
difficulty renders more eager and more obstinate. Yet when you are for
ever out of his reach; as the obstacle will become invincible, he must
yield to necessity. While you remain single, he will still hope. The
greatest kindness, therefore, that you can do him, will be to convince
him that he has nothing to expect from you; and put an end at once to
the uncertainty which tortures him.'

'To drive him to despair? Ah! I know so well the dreadful force of his
passions, and the excesses he is capable of committing when under their
influence, that I dare not, I positively will not, risk it. I love
Delamere as my brother; I love him for the resemblance he is said to
bear to my father. I pity him for the errors which the natural
impetuosity of his temper, inflamed by the unbounded indulgence of his
mother, continually leads him into; and the misfortunes these causes are
so frequently inflicting on him; and should his fatal inclination for
me, be the means of bringing on himself and on his family yet other
miseries, I should never forgive myself; or him by whose means they were
incurred.'

'From me, at least, you have nothing of that sort to apprehend: I truly
pity Delamere; I feel what it must be to have relinquished the woman he
loves; and to find her lost to his hopes, while his passion is
unabated:--be assured my compassion for him will induce me rather to
soothe his unhappiness than to insult him with an ostentatious display
of my enviable fortune. Yet if you suffer me to believe my attachment
not disagreeable to you, how shall I wholly conceal it? how appear as
not _daring_ to avow that, which is the glory and happiness of my life?
and by your being supposed disengaged and indifferent, see you exposed
to the importunities of an infinite number of suitors, who, however
inconsequential they may be to _you_, will torment _me_. I do not know
that I have much of jealousy in my nature; yet I cannot tell how I shall
bear to see Delamere presuming again on your former friendship for
him.--Even the volatile and thoughtless Bellozane has the power to make
me uneasy, when I see him so persuaded of his own merit, and so
confident of success.'
