"Henry," it said, "oh, not yet, Henry! do not leave me yet."
Henry Hayley turned at once, and seated himself beside her; he took her hand, and it remained in his, and when he at length departed, the sky was quite dark, but his heart had daylight in itself.
CHAPTER XI.
Three chapters to one group of people is almost more than it is fair to allow; and yet the fact of there being three in the group, as well as a strong predilection on my own part for chronological progression, must excuse my remaining attached to Henry Hayley and his fair companions, at least till that day had reached its close. Now the period of a day's close may be differently estimated, according as a man is astronomical, Judaical, ecclesiastical, or chronological. Some will have it that sunset closes the day; some say midnight is the day's end--which, of course, is a contradiction in terms; some one hour, some another; but as men have never been agreed upon the subject since the beginning of the world, and I am decidedly fond of paradoxes, I prefer midnight, and therefore declare that, when I say "the close of the day," I mean neither more nor less than twelve o'clock at night.
With a light and joyful step Henry Hayley took his way through the park where he had so often played in infancy and boyhood, towards one of the two lodges, selecting that one, the gates of which opened upon the road, near a little village, at which he had left the post-chaise that brought him from London. The moon, just risen and not far from the full, showed him many an old familiar sight; and the happiness of his own heart harmonized so well with the pleasant memories of the past that he almost fancied himself a boy again, and all the terrible realities of the last ten years nothing but a painful dream. There was one thing, indeed, which might have proved to him that it was not so--that there was a wide interval between the past and the present, and that was the sensation of passion. Yes, there was now passion in his bosom--passion which had not been there before--passion which even at the dawn of morning he had not felt.
Let not the reader marvel. There are certainly such things occasionally as love at first sight, but with him it was very different. If the eye which runs over these lines saw the sun rise as often as mine does--I see him open the curtains of the night, I believe, more frequently than any man in England, more frequently even than the matutinal labourer of the fields--if any reader, I say, saw the sun rise as often as I do, he would understand the whole process of Henry's love in a moment. Not that it had anything to do with sunrise, or with sunset, or with the rising, southing, and setting of the moon; but there is a certain comfortable arrangement which every early riser practises, or should practise, in the winter, and which perfectly explains Henry Hayley's case. You direct the housemaid to take a bundle of dry sticks--called in some places a fagot, in other parts of the country a bavin: in London men use square bits of deal--and, laying them artistically, with sufficient spaces between them to allow the air to pass, to place over them a mass or quantity of paper: such a manuscript as this would do very well, but a newspaper is better, for a thousand to one it contains more inflammable materials. Over all you superinduce a thin and pervious stratum of bituminous coal; and then in the morning, when you rise, you put a candle (lighted) to the paper, and the whole mass is in a blaze in a moment. Now, in Henry Hayley's case, Fate had been the housemaid; the friendships and affections of youth, piled one above the other, had been the wood nicely laid. The paper might perhaps be represented by all the longing, eager memories and fancies of and regarding the fair companion of his youth during the last long ten years; a warm, earnest, ardent heart was the inflammable coal at the top; and the sudden sight, and tender interest, and kindly affection of Maria were the light which kindled the flame in a moment.
He had, in short, met her that night, loving her very much; and he left her, loving her as much as it is possible for man to love.
He went through the park, then, with the spirit of the past and the present on either hand, leading him through paths of fairy flowers to scenes of imaginary happiness. Ah! that quarter of an hour was well worth the ten years of suffering.
He could hardly make up his mind to pass the gates; but there was no use in lingering, and he sped on. Such a frugal dinner as he wanted was easily obtained at the little public-house--for it did not deserve the name of an inn; and when it was over, he still sat for a time and thought of Maria--not of Lady Anne--till his watch, which he had laid on the table, showed him that it was time to depart for his next visit. Then, indeed, he turned his mind to her whom he was so soon to see; but still Henry Hayley was a gentleman--not in manners alone, but in heart and mind--and a gentleman never misunderstands a woman.
There was not one thought in his bosom which could have pained or offended Lady Anne, if she had seen them all.