"You see, now"—and that hard laugh smote me to the heart again—"you see, Phineas, how wicked I am growing. You will have to cut my acquaintance presently."
"Tell me the rest—I mean, the rest of your life in London," I said, after a pause. "Did you ever hear of her?"
"Of course not; though I knew she was there. I saw it in the Court Circular. Fancy a lady, whose name was in the Court Circular, being inquired after by a tanner's lad! But I wanted to look at her—any beggar might do that, you know—so I watched in streets and parks, by theatre-doors at night, and by church-doors on Sunday mornings; yet I never saw her once. Only think, not once for five whole months."
"John, how could you tell me you were happy?"
"I don't know. Perhaps because of my pride; perhaps because—Ah, don't look so wretched! Why did you let me say all this? You are too good for such as I."
Of course I took no heed of idle words like these. I let him stand there, leaning against the stile, now and then grasping it with his nervous, muscular hands, as if he would tear it down; then I said quietly:
"What do you intend to do?"
"Do? Nothing! What can I do? Though sometimes a score of wild plans rush into my mind, such as to run away to the Indies, like that young Warren Hastings we were talking of, come back twenty years hence a nabob, and—marry her."
"Marry her," I repeated, mournfully.
"Ay, I could. That is what maddens me. If now she and I were to meet and stand together, equal man and woman, I could make her love me; I feel I could. Instead of crawling after her thus I would go boldly in at those very gates—do you think she is there?"