"You say that!" cried Harriet; "you are glad to break with me—to believe that I did not love you, Sidney?"
"Yes, I am glad. I can see that it was all for the best; and though I could have wished that there had been a different reason for the parting, still it takes a weight from my conscience—it is a relief!"
It was a struggle to say so, but he said it without bitterness, and in good faith. By some ingenious method of word-twisting, which Harriet could not follow, he had stopped all effort to explain more fully, and turned the blame of the engagement on himself. There was no answering; she saw that his heart was wrung with the agony of the dissolution, but she read upon that pale, stern face, to which she glanced but once, an inflexible resolve, that nothing could alter. He upbraided her not; he uttered not one sarcasm upon the folly of her past passion for Mr. Darcy, or the mistakes to which it had led; he expressed a wish to be her friend still, but he gave her up, and with all her love for him—and she knew how truly it was love then—she could not ask him to reconsider his verdict and spare her a parting as bitter for her as him. She read in that hasty glance at his face, incredulity of her affection for him; and no protestation on her part could have altered that. Yes, it was ended between them—perhaps for the best, God knew; she could not think of it then—she was ashamed, miserable, utterly cast down!
"Let me get home," she murmured; "what a long way it is to home."
"I will say no more, Harriet—I have been unkind to say so much," he said, in answer to that cry, in which he might have read the truth, had not his heart been for ever closed to it from that night.
So, in the same silent way as they had begun that inauspicious walk, the two concluded it, reaching the little house of Mr. Wesden shortly afterwards. Colder and more grim the night there; beyond the lighted London streets, in melancholy suburban districts like to this, there seemed to lurk a greater desolation.
"Good night," he said; "don't think that we part in anger, or that I am hurt in any way at what has happened—or that I am less your friend than ever, Harriet."
"Good night," was all her answer.
He lingered still, as though he had more to say, or was endeavouring to think of something more to render the disruption less abrupt and harsh; but he relinquished the attempt, and left her, walking away rapidly as though at the last—the very last—he feared to trust himself.
He did not go straight home, but walked for awhile up and down the street wherein his home was, at the same rapid pace, with his breath held somewhat, and his hands clenched.