“Then you are mine, Melea. You have long known that I was wholly yours. You must have known——”
“Very long; and if you knew what a support—what a blessing in the midst of everything—it makes me ashamed to hear any thing of my share in this trial.”
Henry was too happy to reply.
“It is only a delay then,” he said at length. “We are to meet, to part no more in this world. You are mine. Only say you are now already mine.”
“Your own, and I trust God will bless our endeavours to do our duty, till it becomes our duty to——. But it will be a long, long time first; and my having undertaken such a charge must prove to you that I am in earnest in saying this. I would not have said what I have done, Henry, nor have listened to you, if I had not hoped that our mutual confidence would make us patient. We shall have much need of patience.”
“We shall not fail, I trust. I feel as if I could bear any thing now:—absence, suspense,—whatever it may please Heaven to appoint us. But I feel as if I could do every thing too; and who knows how soon——Oh, Melea, is there really no other difficulty than our own labours may remedy? Your father—Mrs. Berkeley——”
“Ask them,” said Melea, smiling. “I have not asked them, but I have not much fear.”
Though Henry and Melea had long been sure that they had no reserves from each other, they now found that there was a fathomless depth of thoughts and feelings to be poured out; and that it was very well that Fanny was detained in the town, and that Lewis was long in summoning courage to show his red eyes in the dining-room. Its being Saturday was reason enough for the young clergyman’s going away without seeing the rest of the family; and that Monday was the day fixed for her departure accounted for Melea’s gentle gravity. She intended to open her mind fully to her mother before she went; but she must keep it to herself this night.
Every one was struck with the fervour of spirit with which the curate went through the services of the next day. Melea alone knew what was in his heart, and understood the full significance of his energy.
It was not till Fanny and Melea were gone, and there was dullness in the small house to which their parents had removed, and it was sometimes difficult to cheer Mr. Berkeley, and wounding to hear the school-children’s questions when the young ladies would come back again, that Henry Craig could fully realize the idea of the necessity of patience. He was still too happy when alone, and too much gratified by Mrs. Berkeley’s confidence in him as in a son, to mourn over the events which had taken place as if they involved no good with their evil. Some of the dreariness of the family prospects belonged to his; but he had, in addition to their steady and lively hope of the due recompense of honourable self-denial and exertion, a cause of secret satisfaction which kept his spirit poised above the depressing influences of suspense and loneliness. He still believed that, happen what might, he could, without difficulty, be patient. According to present appearances, there was every probability that this faith would be put to the proof.