“Impossible—impossible!” he cried. “It is impossible that I should be so affected—a village girl!... And I did not talk with her half a dozen times in all!... Kind, thoughtful, with tact—a gracious presence, a receptive mind.... Ah, it was she undoubtedly who set me thinking—who made me feel dissatisfied with my isolation, but still.. . oh, impossible—impossible!”
And, although a just man, the thoughts that he now believed himself to have in regard to Nelly Polwhele were bitter rather than sweet. He began to think that it was too bold of her—almost immodest—to make the attempt to change the whole course of the life of such a man as he was. He had once courted the lonely life, believing it to be the only life for such as he—the only life that enabled him to give all his thoughts—all his strength—oh, all his life—all his life—to the work which had been appointed for him to do in the world of sinners; but lo! that child had come to him, and had made him feel that he was not so different from other men.
Under the influence of his bitterness, he resented her intrusion, as it were. Pshaw! the girl wras nothing. It was only companionship as a sentiment that he had been longing for; he had a clear idea of the companionship that he needed; but he had never thought of the companion. It was a mere trick of the fancy to suggest that, because the young woman had sent his thoughts into a certain groove, they must of necessity be turned in the direction of the young woman herself.
He soon found, however, that it is one thing for a man to prove to the satisfaction of his own intelligence that it would be impossible that he should set his heart on a particular young woman, but quite another to shut her out from his heart. He had his heart to reckon with, though he did not know it.
Before the day had passed he had shut the doors of his heart, and he believed that he had done right. He did not know that he had shut those doors, not against her, but upon her.
Like all men who have accomplished great things in the world, he was intensely human. His sympathy flowed forth for his fellow-men in all circumstances of life. But he did not know himself sufficiently well to understand that what he thought of with regret as his weaknesses, were actually those elements wherein lay the secret of his influence with men.
He had just succeeded, he fancied, in convincing himself that it was impossible he could ever have entertained a thought of Nelly Polwhele as the one who could afford him the companionship which he craved, when a letter came to him from Mr. Hartwell, whom he had appointed the leader of the class which he had established at Porthawn, entreating him to return to them, as they were in great distress and in peril of falling to pieces, owing to the conduct of one of their members, Richard Pritchard by name.
Could he affirm that the sorrow which he felt on receiving this news was the sum of all the emotions that filled his heart at that moment?
He laid down the letter, saying,
“It is the Lord's doing.”