“You don’t imagine,” said Hugh, passionately, “that I don’t know how precious, how utterly good it is! You don’t think I don’t love her?”
“No, no, I don’t think that.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Hugh said, more lightly:
“And how about my mother, and all that part of the business?”
“As to that, Jem was right, of course, at an early stage of the proceedings; but it is not such an extreme case but what I think it may all be managed. Violante is differently placed now, and is herself all anyone could wish. And you wouldn’t be worth much without her, Hugh.”
“Just nothing,” said Hugh.
“Well, then,” said Arthur, boldly, “why don’t you go home to-morrow morning and see her?”
Hugh leant over the wall in silence, enduring a conflict of feeling that only such natures ever know. He desired this thing with passionate intensity; he knew, from bitter experience, that he could not bear its loss. He was not one whose feet went creditably along the paths of self-denial, or from whom voluntary self-sacrifice came with any grace. And yet he felt how little he deserved this blessing, how utterly beyond his merits it would be, with such humiliation that he could hardly bear to put out his hand to take it. To feel himself crowned with such undeserved joy, to take it almost from Arthur’s hand—to find that there was left for him no expiation, no penance even for the wrong he had done—to know “that no man may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him,” was a pang unknown to humbler, simpler souls, but bitter as death to him.
It was almost inconceivable to Arthur, with his unconquerable instinct for making the best of things, and his readiness to accept consolation from any quarter. He had no particular insight into character, nor any inclination to sit in judgment on his neighbours; but he did perceive that Hugh was distressed by the contrast between their fortunes, and that he was suffering under an access of self-reproach, so he said:
“You can’t tell how much good you have done me lately. It has been the greatest rest to be with you; but this will only be pleasure to me. I know you would put it all off to save me any pain, but I shall be happier for it—I shall indeed—don’t have a single scruple.”