James was so horrified with this view of Hugh’s situation that he began vehemently to controvert it, and was ready to recommend a renewal of the acquaintance rather than the rejection of it on such a motive.
“What would they not be justified in saying now?” said Hugh—“and if not—I’m not the same man that—that—”
Hugh paused and drooped his head low, a sudden rush of recollection revealing how much of the same man remained.
“I’ve got to catch the Oxley train,” he said, getting up.
“Why, you’re never going back to-night! And I say, Hugh, you’ve been there by yourself quite long enough. Shall I run down, or why don’t you go to Bournemouth?”
“I don’t want any change, thank you,” said Hugh. “Good night,” and he was gone before Jem had time to mutter to himself, “I don’t know how it would be if he saw her, though!”
But Hugh, as he went out into the cold night, felt his brain in a whirl. He had had a change, whether he wished for one or not—a change of thought, and feeling, and association; a wave of feeling that seemed to make him conscious of what he used to be like at that time that seemed now like his whole past. But it was past, so completely that he did not even argue with himself against its return. His words were so far true that he could not have pushed his recent life aside, and sought out Violante again.
Only, now and then, as the days went by, she seemed to steal like a vision into his solitary rooms. He saw her finger the quaint old ornaments of his grandmother’s drawing-room at the Bank House, or sit on its narrow window-seats at work. But Redhurst and all his outer life was haunted by another vision—haunted as truly as if a spirit with wet white dress and covered face had really wandered over the frosty autumn meadows, or seemed to float on the dull waters, which no summer sun awoke to sparkling light.