‘From Bath?’ enquired Glastonbury.
But his companion did not reply. At length he said, in a voice of utter wretchedness, ‘Glastonbury, you see before you the most miserable of human beings.’
The good father started.
‘Yes!’ continued Ferdinand; ‘this is the end of all your care, all your affection, all your hopes, all your sacrifices. It is over; our house is fated; my life draws to an end.’
‘Speak, my Ferdinand,’ said Glastonbury, for his pupil seemed to have relapsed into moody silence, ‘speak to your friend and father. Disburden your mind of the weight that presses on it. Life is never without hope, and, while this remains,’ pointing to the crucifix, ‘never without consolation.’
‘I cannot speak; I know not what to say. My brain sinks under the effort. It is a wild, a complicated tale; it relates to feelings with which you cannot sympathise, thoughts that you cannot share. O Glastonbury! there is no hope; there is no solace.’
‘Calm yourself, my Ferdinand; not merely as your friend, but as a priest of our holy church, I call upon you to speak to me. Even to me, the humblest of its ministers, is given a power that can sustain the falling and make whole the broken in spirit. Speak, and speak fearlessly; nor shrink from exposing the very inmost recesses of your breast; for I can sympathise with your passions, be they even as wild as I believe them.’
Ferdinand turned his eyes from the fire on which he was gazing, and shot a scrutinising glance at his kind confessor, but the countenance of Glastonbury was placid, though serious.
‘You remember,’ Ferdinand at length murmured, ‘that we met, we met unexpectedly, some six weeks back.’
‘I have not forgotten it,’ replied Glastonbury.