“I 'll tell you, Alice. You have sent away that poor boy more in love than ever. You have let him carry away a hope which you well know is only a delusion.”
“I protest this is too bad. I never dreamed of such a lecture, and I 'll just go downstairs and make a victim of Mr. Damer.”
Alice arose and dashed out of the room; not, however, to do as she said, but to hurry to her own room, and lock the door after her as she entered it.
CHAPTER XXXIV. TONY ASKS COUNSEL
It was just as Bella said; Alice had sent off that poor boy “twice as much in love as ever.” Poor fellow! what a strange conflict was that that raged within him!—all that can make life glorious, give ecstasy to the present and hope to the future, mingled with everything that can throw a gloom over existence, and make it a burden and a task. Must it be ever thus?—must the most exquisite moments of our life, when we have youth and hope and health and energy, be dashed with fears that make us forget all the blessings of our lot, and deem ourselves the most wretched of created beings?
In this feverish alternation he travelled along homeward,—now thinking of the great things he could do and dare to win her love, now foreshadowing the time when all hopes should be extinguished, and he should walk the world alone and forsaken. He went over in memory—who has not done so at one time or other?—all she had said to him at their last meeting, asking what ground there might be for hope in this, what reason for belief in that. With what intense avidity do we seek for the sands of gold in this crushed and crumbled rock! how eagerly do we peer to catch one glittering grain that shall whisper to us of wealth hereafter!
Surely, thought he, Alice is too good and too true-hearted to give me even this much of hope if she meant me to despair. Why should she offer to write to me if she intended that I was to forget her? “I wonder,” muttered he, in his dark spirit of doubt,—“I wonder if this be simply the woman's way of treating a love she deems beneath her?” He had read in some book or other that it is no uncommon thing for those women whose grace and beauty win homage and devotion thus to sport with the affections of their worshippers, and that in this exercise of a cruel power they find an exquisite delight. But Alice was too proud and too high-hearted for such an ignoble pastime. But then he had read, too, that women sometimes fancy that, by encouraging a devotion they never mean to reward, they tend to elevate men's thoughts, ennobling their ambitions, and inspiring them with purer, holier hopes. What if she should mean this, and no more than this? Would not her very hatred be more bearable than such pity? For a while this cruel thought unmanned him, and he sat there like one stunned and powerless.
For some time the road had led between the low furze-clad bills of the country, but now they had gained the summit of a ridge, and there lay beneath them that wild coast-line, broken with crag and promontory towards the sea, and inland swelling and falling in every fanciful undulation, yellow with the furze and the wild broom, but grander for its wide expanse than many a scene of stronger features. How dear to his heart it was! How inexpressibly dear the spot that was interwoven with every incident of his life and every spring of his hope! There the green lanes he used to saunter with Alice; there the breezy downs over which they cantered; yonder the little creek where they had once sheltered from a storm: he could see the rock on which he lit a fire in boyish imitation of a shipwrecked crew! It was of Alice that every crag and cliff, every bay and inlet spoke.
“And is all that happiness gone forever?” cried he, as he stood gazing at the scene. “I wonder,” thought he, “could Skeffy read her thoughts and tell me how she feels towards me? I wonder will he ever talk to her of me, and what will they say?” His cheek grew hot and red, and he muttered to himself, “Who knows but it may be in pity?” and with the bitterness of the thought the tears started to his eyes, and coursed down his cheeks.