Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 5).pdf/181

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She then seated herself upon the turf, and made Harleigh seat himself before her, while Juliet remained by her side.

"Can you feign, Harleigh? Can you endure to act a part, in defiance of your nobler nature, merely to prolong my detested life? Do you join in the popular cry against suicide, merely to arrest my impatient hand? If not, initiate me, I beseech, in the series of pretended reasoning, by which honour, honesty, and understanding such as yours, have been duped into bigotry? How is it, explain! that you can have been worked upon to believe in an existence after death? Ah, Harleigh! could you, indeed, give so sublime a resting-place to my labouring ideas!—I would consent to enter the ecclesiastical court myself, to sing the recantation of what you deem my errours. And then, Albert, I might learn,—with all my wretchedness!—to bear to live,—for then, I might seek and foster some hope in dying!"

"Dear Elinor!" cried Harleigh, gently,