She wrote , `` No , it is not enough . It would be doing you a great wrong to marry you when I can not speak , and I will not do it because I love you too much to do anything that would harm you . Your world would think you had done a very foolish thing and it would be right . I have thought it all over many times since something Aunt Janet said made me understand , and I know I am doing right . I am sorry I did not understand sooner , before you had learned to care so much . '' `` Kilmeny , darling , you have taken a very absurd fancy into that dear black head of yours . Do n't you know that you will make me miserably unhappy all my life if you will not be my wife ? '' `` No , you think so now ; and I know you will feel very badly for a time . Then you will go away and after awhile you will forget me ; and then you will see that I was right . I shall be very unhappy , too , but that is better than spoiling your life . Do not plead or coax because I shall not change my mind . '' Eric did plead and coax , however -- at first patiently and smilingly , as one might argue with a dear foolish child ; then with vehement and distracted earnestness , as he began to realize that Kilmeny meant what she said . It was all in vain . Kilmeny grew paler and paler , and her eyes revealed how keenly she was suffering . She did not even try to argue with him , but only listened patiently and sadly , and shook her head . Say what he would , entreat and implore as he might , he could not move her resolution a hairs-breadth . Yet he did not despair ; he could not believe that she would adhere to such a resolution ; he felt sure that her love for him would eventually conquer , and he went home not unhappily after all . He did not understand that it was the very intensity of her love which gave her the strength to resist his pleading , where a more shallow affection might have yielded . It held her back unflinchingly from doing him what she believed to be a wrong . CHAPTER XV .
AN OLD , UNHAPPY , FAR-OFF THING The next day Eric sought Kilmeny again and renewed his pleadings , but again XXXXX vain .
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