“After some remarks upon Roland, full of deep and considerate feeling, and one quick, hurried reference to the son,—to the effect that his guilty attempt would never be known by the world,—Trevanion then addressed himself to me with a warmth and urgency that took me by surprise. ‘After what has passed,’ he exclaimed, ‘I cannot suffer you to leave England thus. Let me not feel with you, as with your uncle, that there is nothing by which I can repay—No, I will not so put it,—stay, and serve your country at home; it is my prayer, it is Ellinor’s. Out of all at my disposal it will go hard but what I shall find something to suit you.’ And then, hurrying on, Trevanion spoke flatteringly of my pretensions, in right of birth and capabilities, to honorable employment, and placed before me a picture of public life, its prizes and distinctions, which for the moment, at least, made my heart beat loud and my breath come quick. But still, even then I felt (was it an unreasonable pride?) that there was something that jarred, something that humbled, in the thought of holding all my fortunes as a dependency on the father of the woman I loved, but might not aspire to; something even of personal degradation in the mere feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for the time did Trevanion’s generosity and eloquence overpower me that I could only falter out my thanks and my promise that I would consider and let him know.
With that promise he was forced to content himself; he told me to direct to him at his favorite country seat, whither he was going that day, and so left me. I looked round the humble parlor of the mean lodging-house, and Trevanion’s words came again before me like a flash of golden light. I stole into the open air and wandered through the crowded streets, agitated and disturbed.
CHAPTER X.
Several days elapsed, and of each day my father spent a considerable part at Vivian’s lodgings. But he maintained a reserve as to his success, begged me not to question him, and to refrain also for the present from visiting my cousin. My uncle guessed or knew his brother’s mission; for I observed that whenever Austin went noiseless away, his eye brightened, and the color rose in a hectic flush to his cheek. At last my father came to me one morning, his carpet-bag in his hand, and said, “I am going away for a week or two. Keep Roland company till I return.”
“Going with him?”
“With him.”
“That is a good sign.”
“I hope so; that is all I can say now.”
The week had not quite passed when I received from my father the letter I am about to place before the reader; and you may judge how earnestly his soul must have been in the task it had volunteered, if you observe how little, comparatively speaking, the letter contains of the subtleties and pedantries (may the last word be pardoned, for it is scarcely a just one) which ordinarily left my father,—a scholar even in the midst of his emotions. He seemed here to have abandoned his books, to have put the human heart before the eyes of his pupil, and said, “Read and un-learn!”