“For myself,” said Upton, not accepting the challenge, “the brief intervals of comparative happiness I have enjoyed have been in periods when complete repose, almost torpor, has surrounded me, and when the mere existence of the day has engaged my thoughts.”
“What became of memory all this while?”
“Memory!” said Upton, laughing, “I hold my memory in proper subjection. It no more dares obtrude upon me uncalled for than would my valet come into my room till I ring for him. Of the slavery men endure from their own faculties I have no experience.”
“And, of course, no sympathy for them.”
“I will not say that I cannot compassionate sufferings, though I have not felt them.”
“Are you quite sure of that?” asked Glencore, almost sternly; “is not your very pity a kind of contemptuous sentiment towards those who sorrow without reason,—the strong man's estimate of the weak man's sufferings? Believe me, there is no true condolence where there is not the same experience of woe!”
“I should be sorry to lay down so narrow a limit to fellow-feeling,” said Upton.
“You told me a few moments back,” said Glencore, “that your memory was your slave. How, then, can you feel for one like me, whose memory is his master? How understand a path that never wanders out of the shadow of the past?”
There was such an accent of sorrow impressed upon these words that Upton did not desire to prolong a discussion so painful; and thus, for the remainder of the way, little was interchanged between them. They crossed the strait by night, and as Upton stole upon deck after dusk, he found Glencore seated near the wheel, gazing intently at the lights on shore, from which they were fast receding.
“I am taking my last look at England, Upton,” said he, affecting a tone of easy indifference.