Then he returned to the drawing room. Holding his head between his hands he walked slowly up and down the floor—up and down the floor—up and down—many times.
"This is weakness," he muttered, "to be thinking of myself when I should think only of her and the long life before her, which might be so joyous but for me—but for me! Dear one who, in her tender childhood, pitied the orphan boy, and with patient, painstaking earnestness taught him to read and write, and gave him the first impulse and inspiration to a higher life. And now she would give her life to me. And for all the good she has done me all her days, for all the blessings she has brought me, shall I blight her happiness? Shall I make her this black return? No, no. Better that I should pass forever out of her life—pass forever out of sight—forever out of this world—than live to make her suffer. Make her suffer? I? Oh, no! Let fame, life, honors, all go down, so that she is saved—so that she is made happy."
He paused in his walk and listened. All the house was profoundly still—all the household evidently asleep—except her! He felt sure that she was sleepless. Oh, that he could go and comfort her! even as a mother comforts her child; but he could not.
"I suppose many would say," he murmured to himself, "that I owe my first earthly duty to the people who have called me to this high office; that private sorrows and private conscience should yield to the public, and they would be right. Yet with me it is as if death had stepped in and relieved me of official duty to be taken up by my successor just the same—"
He stopped and put his hand to his head, murmuring:
"Is this special pleading? I wonder if I am quite sane?"
Then dropping into a chair he covered his face with his hands and wept aloud.
Does any one charge him with weakness? Think of the tragedy of a whole life compressed in that one crucial hour!
After a little while he grew more composed. The tears had relieved the overladen heart. He arose and recommenced his walk, reflecting with more calmness on the cruel situation.
"I shall right her wrongs in the only possible way in which it can be done, and I shall do no harm to the State. Kennedy will be a better governor than I could have been. He is an older, wiser, more experienced statesman. I am conscious that I have been over-rated by the people who love me. I was elected for my popularity, not for my merit. And now—I am not even the man that I was—my life seems torn out of my bosom. Oh, Cora, Cora! life of my life! But you shall be happy, dear one! free and happy after a little while. Ah! I know your gentle heart. You will weep for the fate of him whom you loved—as a brother. Oh! Heaven! but your tears will come from a passing cloud that will leave your future life all clear and bright—not darkened forever by the slavery of a union with one whom you do not—only because you cannot—love."