"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late."
"There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world—nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity—shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!'"
As John spoke, in much more excitement than was usual to him, a sudden flush or rather spasm of colour flushed his face, then faded away, leaving him pallid to the very lips. He sat down hastily, in his frequent attitude, with the left arm passed across his breast.
"Lord Ravenel." His voice was faint, as though speech was painful to him.
The other looked up, the old look of reverent attention, which I remembered in the boy-lord who came to see us at Norton Bury; in the young "Anselmo," whose enthusiastic hero-worship had fixed itself, with an almost unreasoning trust, on Muriel's father.
"Lord Ravenel, forgive anything I have said that may have hurt you. It would grieve me inexpressibly if we did not part as friends."
"Part?"
"For a time, we must. I dare not risk further either your happiness or my child's."
"No, not hers. Guard it. I blame you not. The lovely, innocent child! God forbid she should ever have a life like mine!"
He sat silent, his clasped hands listlessly dropping, his countenance dreamy; yet, it seemed to me, less hopelessly sad: then with a sudden effort he rose.