"I will try to be worthy of you.

I will try to love you as you deserve to be loved.

It was only a fancy of mine that it would be better for you to be free from all thoughts of me.

I think it would seem very hard to me to lose your love.

I don't think I could bear that, Gilbert." She looked up at him with an appealing expression through her tears--an innocent, half-childish look that went to his heart--and he clasped her to his breast, believing that this proposal to set him free had been indeed nothing more than a girlish caprice.
"My dearest, my life is bound up with your love," he said.