"It will not be of the slightest use, Mr. Newton; and you may tell him so. Though I suppose it is impossible to make a man believe that."
"Are we both so unfortunate?" he asked.
The poor girl with her wounded love, and every feeling sore within her, had not intended to say anything that should be cruel or injurious to Gregory himself, and it was not till the words were out of her mouth that she herself perceived their effect. "Oh, Mr. Newton, I was only thinking of him," she said, innocently. "I only meant that Ralph is one of those who always think they are to have everything they want."
"I am not one of those, Clarissa. And yet I am one who seem never to be tired of asking for that which is not to be given to me. I said to myself when last I went from here that I would never ask again;—that I would never trouble you any more." She was sitting with the book in her hand, looking out into the gloom, and now she made no attempt to answer him. "And yet you see here I am," he continued. She was still silent, and her head was still turned away from him; but he could see that tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I have not the power not to come to you while yet there is a chance," he said. "I can live and work without you, but I can have no life of my own. When I first saw you I made a picture to myself of what my life might be, and I cannot get that moved from before my eyes. I am sorry, however, that my coming should make you weep."
"Oh, Mr. Newton, I am so wretched!" she said, turning round sharply upon him. For a moment she had thought that she would tell him everything, and then she checked herself, and remembered how ill-placed such a confidence would be.
"What should make you wretched, dearest?"
"I do not know. I cannot tell. I sometimes think the world is bad altogether, and that I had better die. People are so cruel and so hard, and things are so wrong. But you may tell your brother that he need not think of my cousin, Mary. Nothing ever would move her. H—sh—. Here they are. Do not say that I was crying."
He was introduced to the beauty, and as the lights came, Clarissa escaped. Yes;—she was indeed most lovely; but as he looked on her, Gregory felt that he agreed with Clarissa that nothing on earth would move her. He remained there for another half-hour; but Clarissa did not return, and then he went back to London.