She bowed her head—the tears were dropping very fast.
‘Thank God!’ he said, as again he leant back in his chair; and when she raised her eyes again, he sat with his hands clasped, and a look of heavenly felicity on his face, raised upwards.
‘Oh! Humfrey! how thoughtlessly I have trifled away all that might have been the happiness of your life!’
‘You never trifled with me,’ he said; ‘you have always dealt honestly and straightforwardly, and it is best as it is. Had we been together all this time, the parting might have been much harder. I am glad there are so few near ties to break.’
‘Don’t say so! you, loved by every one, the tower of strength to all that is good!’
‘Hush, hush! nonsense, Honor!’ said he, kindly. ‘I think I have tried,’ he went on, gravely, ‘not to fall behind the duties of my station; but that would be a bad dependence, were there not something else to look to. As to missing me, the world did very well without me before I was born; it will do as well when I am gone; and as to you, my poor Honor, we have been very little together of late.’
‘I had you to lean on.’
‘Lean on something stronger,’ he said; and as she could not govern her bitter weeping, he went on—‘Ah! I am the selfish one now, to be glad of what must make it the worse for you; but if one thing were wanting to make me happy, it was to know that at last you cared for me.’
‘I should be a wretch not to do so. So many years of patience and forbearance!—Nobody could be like you.’
‘I don’t see that,’ said Humfrey, simply. ‘While you continued the same, I could not well turn my mind to any one else, and I always knew I was much too loutish for you.’