‘If it be all my bad management, cannot it be set right?’ humbly and hopefully said Phœbe.
‘There is no right!’ he said. ‘There, take it back. It settles the question. The security you childishly showed, was treated as offensive presumption on my part. It would be presuming yet farther to make a formal withdrawal of what was never accepted.’
‘Then is it my doing? Have I made mischief between you, and put you apart?’ said poor Phœbe, in great distress. ‘Can’t I make up for it?’
‘You? No, you were only an over plain-spoken child, and brought about the crisis that must have come somehow. It is not what you have done, or not done; it is what Lucy Sandbrook has said and done, shows that I must have done with her for ever.’
‘And yet,’ said Phœbe, taking this as forgiveness, ‘you see she never believed that you would give her up. If she did, I am sure she would not have gone.’
‘She thinks her power over me stronger than my principles. She challenges me—desires you to tell me so. We shall see.’
He spoke as a man whose steadfastness had been defied, and who was piqued on proving it to the utmost. Such feelings may savour of the wrath of man, they may need the purifying of chastening, and they often impel far beyond the bounds of sober judgment; but no doubt they likewise frequently render that easy which would otherwise have appeared impossible, and which, if done in haste, may be regretted, but not repented, at leisure.
Under some circumstances, the harshness of youth is a healthy symptom, proving force of character and conviction, though that is only when the foremost victim is self. Robert was far from perfect, and it might be doubted whether he were entering the right track in the right way, but at least his heart was sound, and there was a fair hope that his failings, in working their punishment, might work their cure.
It was in a thorough brotherly and Christian spirit that before entering the house he compelled himself to say, ‘Don’t
vex yourself, Phœbe, I know you did the best you could. It made no real difference, and it was best that she should know the truth.’