The Count of Monte Cristo

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leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of
twenty, or two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which
vexation and uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes,
but the firm and steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look.

"You see, Mercedes," said the young man, "here is Easter come round
again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding?"

"I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be
very stupid to ask me again."

"Well, repeat it,--repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe
it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had
your mother's sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are
trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you.
Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercedes, and
to lose that hope, which was the only stay of my existence!"