“Well, I don’t mean deserted. There is no desertion on either side. It is a perfectly amicable arrangement of two people who are not disposed to travel the same road. I don’t want to imply that any more blame attaches to you than to me.”
“How can any attach to me at all?” cried he.
“Oh, then, if you wish it, I take the whole of it.”
“Shall I speak to your aunt, Miss Walter, or will you?”
“It does not signify much which of us is the first to acquaint her. Perhaps, however, it would come with more propriety from you. I think I see her yonder near the cypress-trees, and I’m sure you’ll be glad to have it over. Wait one moment, this ring—” as she endeavoured to draw a small ruby ring from her finger, Loyd saw the turquoise which she wore on the other hand—“this ring,” said she, in some confusion, “is yours.”
“Not this one,” said he, sternly, as he pointed to the other.
“No, the ruby,” said she, with an easy smile. “It was getting to hurt my finger.”
“I hope you may wear the other more easily,” said he with a bitter laugh.
“Thank you,” said she, with a curtesy, and then turned away, and walked towards the house.
After Loyd had proceeded a few steps to overtake Miss Grainger, he stopped and hastened back to the villa. Such an explanation as he must make could, he felt, be only done by a letter. He could not, besides, face the questioning and cross-questioning the old lady would submit him to, nor endure the misery of recalling, at her bidding, each stage of their sad quarrel. A letter, therefore, he would write, and then leave the villa for ever, and without a farewell to any. He knew this was not a gracious way to treat those who had been uniformly affectionate and kind—who had been to him like dear sisters—but he dreaded a possible meeting. He could not answer for himself, either, as to what charges he might be led to make against Florence, or what weakness of character he might exhibit in the midst of his affliction. “I will simply narrate so much as will show that we have agreed to separate, and are never to meet more,” muttered he. “Florence may tell as much more as she likes, and give what version of me she pleases. It matters little now how or what they think of one whose heart is already in the grave.” And thus saying, he gained his room, and, locking the door, began to write. Deeply occupied in his task, which he found so difficult that several half-scrawled sheets already littered the table before him, he never felt the time as it passed. It was already midnight before he was aware of it, and still his letter was not finished. It was so hard to say though and not too much; so hard to justify himself in any degree and yet spare her, against whom he would not use one word of reproach; so hard to confess the misery that he felt, and yet not seem abject in the very, avowal.