But I did not mean that Frederick should be the means of transmitting messages between us--only that each might know, through him, of the other's welfare;--and more than this ought not to be: for you are young, Gilbert, and you ought to marry--and will some time, though you may think it impossible now: and though I hardly can say I wish you to forget me, I know it is right that you should, both for your own happiness, and that of your future wife;--and therefore I must and will wish it,' she added resolutely.
'And you are young too, Helen,' I boldly replied; 'and when that profligate scoundrel has run through his career, you will give your hand to me--I'll wait till then.' But she would not leave me this support.

Independently of the moral evil of basing our hopes upon the death of another, who, if unfit for this world, was at least no less so for the next, and whose amelioration would thus become our bane and his greatest transgression our greatest benefit,--she maintained it to be madness: many men of Mr.Huntingdon's habits had lived to a ripe though miserable old age.

'And if I,' said she, 'am young in years, I am old in sorrow; but even if trouble should fail to kill me before vice destroys him, think, if he reached but fifty years or so, would you wait twenty or fifteen--in vague uncertainty and suspense--through all the prime of youth and manhood--and marry at last a woman faded and worn as I shall be--without ever having seen me from this day to that ?--You would not,' she continued, interrupting my earnest protestations of unfailing constancy,--'or if you would, you should not.
Trust me, Gilbert; in this matter I know better than you.

You think me cold and stony-hearted, and you may, but--' 'I don't, Helen.' 'Well, never mind: you might if you would: but I have not spent my solitude in utter idleness, and I am not speaking now from the impulse of the moment, as you do.

I have thought of all these matters again and again; I have argued these questions with myself, and pondered well our past, and present, and future career; and, believe me, I have come to the right conclusion at last.