"I shall never be able to do that."
"Oh yes;—that is, if you will make the effort for my sake. I do not believe but what people can manage and mould their own wills if they will struggle hard enough. You must not be unhappy, Walter."
"I am not so wise or self-confident as you, Mary. I shall be unhappy. I should be deceiving myself if I were to tell myself otherwise. There is nothing before me to make me happy. When I came home there was very little that I cared for, though I had the prospect of this money and thought that my cares in that respect were over. Then I met you, and the whole world seemed altered. I was happy even when I found how badly I had been treated. Now all that has gone, and I cannot think that I shall be happy again."
"I mean to be happy, Walter."
"I hope you may, dear."
"There are gradations in happiness. The highest I ever came to yet was when you told me that you loved me." When she said that, he attempted to take her hand, but she withdrew from him, almost without a sign that she was doing so. "I have not quite lost that yet," she continued, "and I do not mean to lose it altogether. I shall always remember that you loved me; and you will not forget that I too loved you."
"Forget it?—no, I don't exactly think that I shall forget it."
"I don't know why it should make us altogether unhappy. For a time, I suppose, we shall be down-hearted."
"I shall, I know. I can't pretend to such strength as to say that I can lose what I want, and not feel it."
"We shall both feel it, Walter;—but I do not know that we must be miserable. When do you leave England?"