“Oh, so I do! I bless God that she is rewarded, better than by me. But you see how it is. You see how I poison every one’s life. I never made anybody happy! I never shall make anyone happy!”
“Let us put the thought of making happiness out of our minds altogether,” said Hope. “I am persuaded that half the misery in the world comes of straining after happiness.”
“After our own,” said Hester. “I could give up my own. But yours! I cannot put yours out of my thoughts.”
“Yes, you can; and you will when you give your faith fair play. Why cannot you trust God with my happiness as well as your own? And why cannot you trust me to do without happiness, if it be necessary, as well as yourself?”
“I know,” said Hester, “that you are as willing to forego all for me as I am for you; but I cannot, I dare not, consent to the risk. Oh, Edward! if ever you wished to give me ease, do what I ask now! Give me up! I shall make you wretched. Give me up, Edward!”
Hope’s spirit was for one instant wrapped in storm. He recoiled from the future, and at the moment of recoil came this offer of release. One moment’s thought of freedom, one moment’s thought of Margaret convulsed his soul; but before he could speak the tempest had passed away. Hester’s face, frightfully agitated, was upraised: his countenance seemed heavenly to her when he smiled upon her, and replied—
“I will not. You are mine; and, as I said before, all our failures, all our heart-sickness, must bind us the more to each other.”
“Then you must sustain me—you must cure me—you must do what no one has ever yet been able to do. But above all, Edward, you must never, happen what may, cast me off.”
“That is, as you say, what no one has ever been able to do,” said he, smiling. “Your father’s tenderness was greatest at the last; and Margaret loves you, you know, as her own soul. Let us avoid promises, but let us rest upon these truths. And now,” continued he, as he drew nearer to her, and made his shoulder a resting-place for her throbbing head, “I have heard your thoughts for the future. Will you hear mine?”
Hester made an effort to still her weeping.