I made no answer. What answer could be made to such words as these? I waited—all I could do—till the paroxysm had gone by. Then I hinted—as indeed seemed not unlikely—that he might see her soon.
"Yes, a great way off, like that cloud up there. But I want her near—close—in my home—at my heart;—Phineas," he gasped, "talk to me—about something else—anything. Don't let me think, or I shall go clean mad."
And indeed he looked so. I was terrified. So quiet as I had always seen him when we met, so steadily as he had pursued his daily duties; and with all this underneath—this torment, conflict, despair, of a young man's love. It must come out—better it should.
"And you have gone on working all this while?"
"I was obliged. Nothing but work kept me in my senses. Besides"—and he laughed hoarsely—"I was safest in the tan-yard. The thought of her could not come there. I was glad of it. I tried to be solely and altogether what I am—a 'prentice lad—a mere clown."
"Nay, that was wrong."
"Was it? Well, at last it struck me so. I thought I would be a gentleman again—just for a pretence, you know—a dream—a bit of the old dream back again. So I went to London."
"And met the Jessops there?"
"Yes; though I did not know she was Jane Cardigan. But I liked her—I liked my life with them. It was like breathing a higher air, the same air that—Oh, Phineas, it was horrible to come back to my life here—to that accursed tan-yard!"
I said nothing.