The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 163: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

154 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. but I shall think it sounds like a death-knell. My thoughts will be of shipwreck. I shall see you strug- gling in the waves—fancy I hear your last despairing shriek, or picture you in a strange land, on a sick bed, and I not near to watch and tend you. I could have borne anything but separation—anything but that.” The tone of deep grief in which the poor girl whis- pered her sorrow went to her lover’s heart, and upset the self-command which he vainly thought he had con- jured up previous to entering the cottage to announce the evil tidings. There is nothing more painful to the manly heart than the tears of those it loves, and Amy’s sorrow almost drove poor Henry into madness, Before her grief, the promise he had made his uncle—the sense of gratitude which bound him—the necessity which he believed existed for his voyage—all gave way: he felt at that moment that he could renounce a thousand uncles to see her smile again. ‘‘T will not go, Amy!” he exclammed; “let my uncle’s fortune perish, if it must be so—wealth has never been my idol—or let another inherit it, I care not. I-can be happy in the richer heritage of thy true heart. I was a fool, a madman, to have promised him. The sacrifice is beyond my strength.” “ You have promised him ?” demanded Amy, fixing her tearful eyes upon him. “* Alas, yes !”’ It is extraordinary how the fortitude of woman rises COniiclooecl SS (SO