“What!” he exclaimed, “resign your appointment as tutor to my ward! quit Sir Walter before you have completed his education, when your system has been so surprisingly successful, too! Oh, the thing is impossible, I cannot hear of it.”
A look of sorrow passed across Lewis’s features as the General mentioned Walter, but he replied with the same calm, respectful, but determined manner, which, to one who knew him well, would have proved that he was acting in accordance with some resolve that he had formed upon principle, and to which he would adhere inflexibly.
“I am grieved to be obliged to relinquish my task unfinished,” he said, “more especially since the interest I have long felt in my poor pupil has rendered duties which others might consider irksome a labour of love to me. I trust, however, that I have been enabled so far to develop poor Walter’s intellects that any person who will treat him judiciously and kindly (and to no other, I am sure, you would entrust him) may be able to complete all that remains to be done towards his education.”
“And pray what is your reason for this sudden determination, Mr. Arundel?” inquired the General, becoming more and more perplexed as he perceived that it would be no easy matter to alter Lewis’s determination. “I presume some more advantageous prospect has been thrown open to you?”
Lewis shook his head mournfully. “You wrong me by such a supposition, sir,” he replied; “my future, as far as I can foresee it, is not a bright one, believe me.”
“Has Lord Bellefield in any way annoyed or interfered with you?” inquired the General, as a suspicion crossed his mind that his amiable future son-in-law might have taken some aggressive step against the young tutor; but Lewis again replied in the negative, adding that his reason for resigning his post was entirely of a personal nature, and that he had not come to the conclusion without due consideration.
“Really, sir,” returned the General, drawing himself up stiffly, as the suspicions instilled by Lord Bellefield suddenly flashed across his mind, “these enigmas are past my comprehension. You propose to resign at a moment’s notice the conduct of my ward’s education, thereby materially injuring him, and causing me the greatest inconvenience and annoyance; I think, therefore, you owe it to me as well as to yourself candidly to state your reason for so doing; at all events I must be allowed to say such concealment is most unlike your usual frank and manly course of proceeding.”
As the General uttered this reproach Lewis coloured, and his compressed lip and knitted brow told how deeply it affected him. When the other had ceased speaking he answered haughtily, “Your reproof may be deserved, General Grant, but it was my wish to save us both pain, which alone induced me to desire the concealment you reprobate; your words, however, oblige me to speak openly, and cost what it may, I will do so. I cannot remain longer beneath your roof \ because I love your daughter. Wait,” he continued sternly, as with a start of horrified surprise the General seemed about to give vent to his indignation in a torrent of words, “you have forced me to speak, and must now hear me out. I well know the feelings with which you regard my mad presumption, as you consider it; I know better even than you do the gulf which lies between your daughter and your paid dependant; but nature recognises no such distinctions—the same God who made her good and beautiful implanted in my breast the admiration for those qualities, and I could no more exist in her presence without loving her than I could stand in the glorious sunshine without feeling its genial warmth. My love was from the beginning as hopeless as I know it to be at this moment, when I read in your lowering brow that if your frown could annihilate me, you would deem the punishment only too mild for my offence against your pride of station; and yet I know, and you know it too, that casting aside the adventitious gifts of rank and fortune, my nature is more akin to your own than is that of the titled worldling you have selected as your future son-in-law. Before night sets in I shall have left this house for ever, and from that moment to you and yours I shall be as one dead. I may therefore say without fear of misconstruction that which I could not speak as long as I remained a member of your household. The tale that I told you regarding the poacher’s child was TRUE. In the version Lord Bellefield gave of it he lied to you. He is a man of evil passions and of narrow mind, and I warn you, if you entrust your daughter’s happiness to him, a time will come when you will bitterly repent it. I will next tell you why I have remained here thus long, and why I leave you now. My passion for your daughter has been the growth of months; how I have striven against it and endeavoured to crush it out—ay, though I crushed my heart with it, none will ever know; it is enough that I have failed, that where I fancied myself strong I have been proved weak. If I have suffered, ’tis through my own folly; if my future appear one fathomless hell of recollection, for myself have I prepared it.” He paused, drew his hand across his throbbing brow, and then continued—
“I remained here for Walter’s sake, relying on my own fortitude to conceal the mental torture I endured; I bore Lord Bellefield’s sneers, and harder still, your daughter’s gentle kindness, with an unmoved aspect, but at each successive trial the effort became greater, and my strength grew less, until this mornings when in her tender woman’s mercy, your daughter, reading in my face traces of the anguish which was consuming me, spoke words of kindliness and sympathy, chance alone, or rather the watchful providence of God, prevented my secret from transpiring. A similar trial might recur at any moment—I have lost all confidence in my power of self-control; therefore every principle of honour and of duty bids me leave this place without delay; and this, so help me Heaven, is the whole and simple truth.”
As he concluded, General Grant, whose brow had gradually relaxed during Lewis’s speech, exclaimed with a degree of warmth most unusual to him, “You have behaved like a man of honour, Mr. Arundel, under what I own to have been a very great trial, and I admire and respect you for so completely justifying the favourable opinion I have formed of you; I wish—that is, I could wish if the thing were not impossible—but it is useless to talk in this way—you must, as you wisely perceive, leave Broadhurst immediately. I will take upon me to find some reason to account for your abrupt departure, but you will carry with you my esteem and gratitude, and in whatever career you may think fit to adopt you may rely upon my willingness to assist you to the uttermost. May I inquire your future plans?”