“I cannot tell; I am in a great labyrinth, from which I must work my way out alone. Nevertheless, my friend, keep near me.” Unconsciously she pressed his arm. He started, and turned his head away. The next moment he added, in a somewhat constrained voice, “I mean—let me have your friendship—your silent comforting—your prayers-Yes! thus far I believe. I can say, 'Pray God for me,' doubting not that He will hear—you, at least, if not me. Therefore, let me go on and struggle through this darkness.”
“Until comes the light! It will come—I know it will!” Olive looked up at him, and their eyes met. In hers was the fulness of joy, in his a doubt—a contest. He removed them, and walked on in silence. The very arm on which Olive leaned seemed to grow rigid—like a bar of severance between them.
“I would to Heaven!” Harold suddenly exclaimed as they approached Harbury—“I would to Heaven I could get away from this place altogether. I think I shall do so. My knowledge and reputation in science is not small. I might begin a new life—a life of active exertion. In fact, I have nearly decided it all.”
“Decided what? It is so sudden. I do not quite understand,” said Olive, faintly.
“To leave England for ever. What do you think of the plan?”
What thought she? Nothing. There was a dull sound in her ears as of a myriad waters—the ground whereon she stood seemed reeling to and fro—yet she did not fall. One minute, and she answered.
“You know best. If good for you, it is a good plan.”
He seemed relieved and yet disappointed. “I am glad you say so. I imagined, perhaps, you might have thought it wrong.”
“Why wrong?”
“Women have peculiar feelings about home, and country, and friends. I shall leave all these. I would not care ever to see England more. I would put off this black gown, and with it every remembrance of the life of vile hypocrisy which I have led here. I would drown the past in new plans—new energies—new hopes. And, to do this, I must break all ties, and go alone. My poor mother! I have not dared yet to tell her. To her, the thought of parting would be like death, so dearly does she love me.”