“You are very good to me,” said Hugh, almost inaudibly and with bent head, not taking the book.
“Hugh,” said Arthur, evidently with great effort, “I don’t feel as you suppose. I cannot speak of—of that—”
“No, no, don’t, don’t speak of it. I know what you feel,” interposed Hugh. “Don’t force yourself to anything else for me.”
The long strain on his nerves had made poor Arthur much less capable of self-control than at first; and though he succeeded in saying, as he put his hand on Hugh’s: “I don’t force myself; you could not help it”—the shudder of horror at the bare allusion to the fact might well be mistaken by Hugh for a struggle to perform an act of forgiveness. It was agony to Hugh to see him suffer; but, if he could have forgotten that and tried to soothe the suffering, the misapprehension would have passed away and the real sympathy between them have comforted both. As it was, he felt a pang of humiliation, and was relieved when James’s entrance spared him the need of a reply; though he knew that his brother would blame him for Arthur’s obvious agitation. As James began to talk, half-coaxingly, about the arrangements for their start, and finally carried Arthur off to have something to eat, the thought that came into Hugh’s mind, spite of himself, was: “He need not wish to change with me, after all.”
Part 4, Chapter XXIV.
Chance and Change.
“Fresh woods and pastures new!”