"Call me Helen," replied the lady, quickly. "Where I now dwell they call me the Lady Helen. I must not add any more; and now adieu, for it is time that both you and I should leave this place."
Green once more urged him to depart; and Brown, with his curiosity not satisfied, but even more excited than ever, quitted the house, mounted his horse, and rode away slowly towards his own dwelling, meditating as he went.
CHAPTER XVI.
"Onward! onward!" cries the voice of youth; whether it may be that the days are bright, passing in joy and tranquillity, and we can say with the greatest French poet of the present day—ay, the greatest, however it may seem—Beranger,
"Sur une onde tranquille,
Voguant soir et matin,
Ma nacelle est docile
Au souffle du destin.
La voile s'enfie-t-elle,
J'abandonne le bord.
(O doux zephir, sois-moi fidele!)
Eh! vogue, ma nacelle;
Nous trouverons un port"—
or whether the morning is overcast with clouds and storms, still "Onward! onward!" is the cry, either in the hope of gaining new joys, or to escape the sorrows that surround us. It is for age to stretch back the longing arms towards the Past: the fate of youth is to bound forward to meet the Future.
Wilton reached his home, and bending down his head upon his hands, passed more than an hour in troublous meditation. All was confused and turbid. The stream of thought was like a mountain torrent, suddenly swelled by rains, overflowing its banks, knowing no restraint, no longer clear and bright, but dark and foaming and whirling in rapid and uncertain eddies round every object that it touched upon. The scene at Beaufort House, the thought of Laura, and all that had been said there, mingled strangely and wildly with everything that had taken place afterwards, and nothing seemed certain, but all confused, and indistinct, and vague. But still there came a cry from the bottom of his heart: the cry of "Onward! onward! onward! towards the fated future!"
Nor was that cry the less vehement or less importunate because he had no power whatsoever to advance or retard the coming events by a single hour: nor had it less influence because—unlike most men, who generally have some lamp, however dim, to give them light into the dark caverns of the future—he had not even one faint ray of probability to show him what was before his footsteps.
On the contrary, the yearning to reach that future, to pass on through that darkness to some brighter place beyond, was all the more strong and urgent. In short, excited imagination had produced some hope, without the slightest probability to foster it. He had even been told that he was to expect information of a painful kind. Not one word had been said to give him the expectation of a bright destiny: and yet there was something so sweet, so happy, in having found any one whose tenderness had been bestowed upon his infant years, and whose affection had remained unchanged by time and absence, that hope—as hope always is—was born of happiness; and though that hope was wild, uncertain, and unfounded, it made the natural eagerness of youth all the more eager.
When he lay down to rest he slept not, but still many a vision floated before his waking eyes, and thought made the night seem short. On the following morning he was early up and dressed; but by seven o'clock a note was put into his hand, in a writing which he did not know. On opening it, however, he found it to contain a request, couched in the most courteous terms, from the Duke of Gaveston, that he would call upon him immediately, and before he went to the house of Lord Byerdale. There was scarcely time to do so; but he instantly ordered his horse, and galloped to Beaufort House as fast as possible. He was ushered immediately into a small saloon, and thence into the dressing-room of the Duke, whom he found in a state of considerable agitation, and evidently embarrassed even in explaining to him what he wanted.