But Wyverne was aware that the self-control which had carried him through so far, was nearly exhausted. He had to think for both, you see; and it was the more trying, because the part of Moderator was so utterly new to him; nevertheless, he played it honestly and bravely.
"I dare not stay. I must see Uncle Hubert before I sleep; and it is only barely possible, if I leave Dene in half an hour. Listen, my Helen: I am not saying good-bye to you, though I say it to our past. I lose my wife; but I do not intend to lose my cousin. I will see you again as soon as I can do so safely. A great black wall is built up now, between the future, and all that we two have said and done: I will never try to pass it again by thought or word. You will forget all this. Hush, dear. You think it impossible at this moment, but I know better. You will play a grand part in the world one of these days, and perhaps you may want a friend—a real friend. Then you shall think of me. I will help you with heart and hand as long as life lasts; and I will do so in all truth and honour—as I hope to meet my dead mother, and Gracie, and you, in heaven."
She did not answer in words. The interview lasted about a hundred seconds longer, but I do not feel called upon to chronicle the last details. Writers, as well as narrators, have a right to certain reserves.
Alan Wyverne was away from Dene before the half hour was out; but he left a sealed note behind him for his aunt. "My lady" was waiting the issue somewhat anxiously; it is needless to say, her health was the merest pretext. She read the note through, calmly enough; but, when she opened her escritoire to lock it up safely, her hands shook like aspen-leaves, and she drank off eagerly the strongest dose of "red lavender" that had passed her lips for many a day.
Does not that decisive interview seem absurdly abrupt and brief? It is true that I have purposely omitted many insignificant words and gestures; but if all these had been chronicled, it would still have been disappointingly matter-of-fact and meagre.
Nevertheless—believe it—to build up a life's happiness is a work of time and labour, aided by great good fortune: to ruin and shatter it utterly is a question of a short half hour, even where no ill luck intervenes. It took months of toil to build the good ship Hesperus, though her timbers were seasoned and ready to hand; it took hours of trouble to launch her when thoroughly equipped for sea; but it took only a few minutes of wave-and-wind-play, to shiver her into splinters, when her keel crushed down on the reef of Norman's Woe.
CHAPTER XVI.
MISANTHROPOS.
On the morning after the most disastrous of all his bad nights at hazard, Charles Fox was found by a friend who called, in fear and trembling, to offer assistance or condolence, lying on his sofa in lazy luxury, deep in an eclogue of Virgil. The magnificent indifference was probably not assumed, for there was little tinsel about that large honest nature, and he was not the man to indulge in private theatricals. Since I read that anecdote, I have always wondered that the successes achieved by the great Opposition leader were not more lasting and complete. Among the triumphs of mind over matter, that power of thoroughly abstracting the thoughts from recent grief or trouble, seems to stand first and foremost. Such sublime stoicism implies a strength of character and of will, that separates its possessor at once from his fellows: sooner or later, He must rule, and they must obey.