"Not I—but you. Oh! Mr. Mowbray!—Charles! Charles!—will you not understand me? Will you spare me this agony? No? you will not. But I have deserved it all, and I will bear it. Charles Mowbray!—it is I who would now lay my fortune at your feet. Oh! do not answer me as I once answered you! Charles Mowbray, will you take me for your wife!"
"No, by Heaven!" he exclaimed, falling on his knees before her. "Poor Rosalind! dear, generous, devoted friend! And for her sake, then—for my dear Helen's sake, you would submit to be my wife—my wife!—an outcast, penniless, insulted beggar!—No, Rosalind; by Heaven, no! I would rather perish in the lowest state of human wretchedness than so abuse your noble nature. But do me justice, noble Rosalind; let there on one point at least be some equality between us. Believe that I love you,—and that with a strength of passion of which, as I think, your unawakened heart has yet no power to judge. But should you, Rosalind, ever learn what it is to love, then do me justice, and know how dear was honour to my soul when I adored but could refuse you."
He seized her dress and pressed it to his lips; and, then rising from his knees, he darted out of the room, without daring to trust his eyes to look at her.
Had Mowbray's state of mind been somewhat less miserable—had the buoyant spirit given to him by nature been less completely crushed by the galling interview of the morning, it is probable that his memory might have suggested to him some circumstances in the hours passed heretofore with Rosalind, which might have raised some blessed hope upon his mind as to the motive and feelings that had led her to act as she had done. But, as it was, no such light from heaven fell upon him. In simplest sincerity he believed that she had rejected his suit because she did not love him, and that she had now offered to become his wife solely for Helen's sake, and in the generous hope of saving her by giving to him the power of offering her a home.
With this conviction, he determined to spare her the embarrassment and himself the torture of meeting again. With all the feverish hurry of impatient suffering, he instantly sought his mother; informed her of Mr. Cartwright's wish that he should return to Oxford, and of his own desire to comply with this immediately.
There was something in the suddenness of this unresisting obedience that seemed to startle her. She applauded his resolution, but seemed to wish that for some short time, at least, he should delay the execution of it. But on this point he was immoveable; and as Mr. Cartwright appeared well pleased that so it should be, he succeeded in so hastening the arrangements for his departure that within twenty-four hours he had left the house, and that without having again seen Rosalind. The greater part of this interval, indeed, was passed at Oakley, where his reiterated assurances that he should be much, very much happier at Oxford than at home, were accepted in excuse for the suddenness of his departure. Sir Gilbert, indeed, had so well read Rosalind's heart, and so confidently did he anticipate his speedy and even triumphant return, that both himself and his lady, who as usual was wholly in his confidence, saw him depart without regret, and uttered their farewells with a cheerfulness that grated sadly on the feelings of the poor exile.
CHAPTER IV.
THE VICAR'S PROSPERITY.—HE SETS ABOUT MAKING SOME IMPORTANT REFORMS IN THE VILLAGE.
The departure of Charles, so immediate and so unrepining, seemed to the vicar a most satisfactory proof that the talent and firmness which he had himself displayed in their final interview had produced exactly the effect which he hoped and intended. "He will, I think, trouble me no more:" such was the comfortable little mental soliloquy with which, as he sat in his noble library, the Vicar of Wrexhill listened to the wheels of the cab, lent to convey Mowbray to the nearest town through which the coach passed.