midnight
As for my part , '' he replied , vehemently , and with something akin to distraction , `` I feel that is impossible , and that even were it possible , I would no more attempt to banish your image from my heart than I would to deliberately still its pulses . Never , never -- such an attempt , such an act , if successful , would be a murder of the affections . No . Lucy , whilst one spark of mortal life is alive in my body , whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment , whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved , I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him through the midnight storm -- as a despairing soul would to the only good act of a wicked life that he could plead for his salvation . '' Whilst he spoke , Lucy kept her eyes fixed upon his noble features , now wrought up into an earnest but melancholy animation , and when he had concluded , she exclaimed , `` And this is the man of whose love they would deprive me , whose very acknowledgment of it comes upon my spirit like an anthem of the heart ; and I know not what I have done to be so tried ; yet , as it is the will of God , I receive it for the best . Dear Charles , you must go ; but you spoke of remonstrating with my father . Do not so ; an interview would only aggravate him .