Mr. Tyrold received it with a secret shuddering: 'Where,' he said, 'is Mandlebert at present?'
'I believe, by this time—at the Hague.'
This sentence, with the grieved, yet still air and tone of voice which accompanied it, was death at once to every flattering hope: he immediately read the letter, which, conceived in the tenderest terms of reverence and affection, took a short and simple, though touchingly respectful leave of the purposed connection, and demolished at once every distant view of future conciliation.
He hung his head a moment, and sighed from the bottom of his heart; but the resignation which he summoned upon every sorrow was never deaf to his call, and when he had secretly ejaculated a short and silent prayer for fortitude to his beloved wife, he turned calmly to the doctor, and began conversing upon other affairs.
Dr. Marchmont presumed not to manifest the commiseration with which he was filled. He saw the true Christian, enduring with humility misfortune, and the respectable parent supporting the dignity of his daughter by his own. To the first character, complaint was forbidden; to the second, it would have been degrading. He looked at him with veneration, but to spare further useless and painful efforts, soon took leave.
Mr. Tyrold, shaking hands with him, said, as they were parting, 'when you write to Mandlebert, assure him of my constant affection. The world, Dr. Marchmont is too full of real evil, for me at least, to cause one moment of unnecessary uneasiness to any of its poor pilgrims. 'Tis strange, my dear doctor, this is not more generally considered, since the advantage would be so reciprocal from man to man. But wrapt up in our own short moment, we forget our neighbour's long hour! and existence is ultimately embittered to all, by the refined susceptibility for ourselves that monopolizes our feelings.'
Doctor Marchmont, who in this last sentence construed a slight reflection upon Edgar, expressively answered, 'Our sensibility for others is not always dormant, because not apparent. How much of worth and excellence may two characters separately possess, where yet there are disuniting particles which impede their harmonizing with each other!'
Mr. Tyrold, powerfully struck, saw now the general nature of the conceptions which had caused this lamented breach. He could not concur, but he would not attempt to controvert: opinion in this case must have even the precedence of justice. If Edgar thought his daughter of a disposition with which his own could not sympathise, it were vain to expatiate upon her virtues or her sweetness; that one doubt previously taken might mar their assimilating efficacy. Comprehending, therefore, the cause at large, he desired no detail; the words of Dr. Marchmont, though decisive, were not offensive, and they parted perfect friends, each perceiving, yet forgiving, that each cast upon the other the error of false reasoning; Edgar to the one, and Camilla to the other, appearing faultless in the separation.
But not in the tasks which succeeded were their offices as easily to be compared. Dr. Marchmont wrote to Edgar that all was quietly relinquished, and his measures were honourably acquitted; while Mr. Tyrold, shut up in his study, spent there some of the severest minutes of his life, in struggling for the equanimity he coveted to pronounce to his daughter this last doom. Pity for her suspence accelerated his efforts, and he then sent for her down stairs.
His utmost composure, in such an interview, was highly necessary for both. The pale and trembling Camilla advanced with downcast eyes; but when he took her in his arms, and kissed her, a sudden ray of hope shot across her quick imagination, and she looked up: an instant was now sufficient to rectify her mistake. The tenderness of her father wore no air of congratulation, it was the mere offspring of compassion, and the woe with which it was mixt, though mild, though patient, was too potent to require words for explanation.