"Methinks," said Arderne, "I have many places to visit and take leave of, ere I can quit them, perhaps for ever."
"Take no leave of them at all," said Martin. "When you return, they will be fresh and fairer in your eyes."
"I have one friend, amongst the many I care not to see again, whom I must see and take leave of," said Arderne; "one whom I would fain spend some time with ere we part."
"Know I him?" inquired Martin.
"You have seen him often," said Arderne, "but you know him not. She who is gone knew him and valued him. 'Tis of her I would speak with him."
"'Twere best not," said Martin; "but (sith I do know the friend you speak of,) I cannot object. There is a kind of character in him I never found in other men. To part with such a one without seeing again is, I grant ye, hard. I give ye one day to spend with your friend, and then you must promise to depart for London."
"I promise it," said Arderne, who already felt relief from being, as it were, driven into action,——"I promise it, good friend, and the day after to-morrow I will depart from Clopton,——depart, perhaps, never to return."
"Good!" said Martin; "well-resolved and resolutely! I expect great things of this expedition, and thy conduct in it. You are just the age to adventure. In youth, we are apt to trust ourselves overmuch; and others too little when old. At thy time of life thou art just between the two extremes. The proper season for action; ergo, thou wilt thrive."
It was evening when this conversation took place at Clopton, and gloom and melancholy still reigned supreme there. Perhaps the feelings of Martin and his young friend were even more depressed, inasmuch as they had a melancholy task to perform ere they left the place.
The good old servant, who we have before seen in attendance upon Charlotte, either from over-exertion or want of rest, had fallen sick just before her charge died. It was supposed at the time that she had taken the plague; such, however, was not the case, as she lingered on for some days after the young lady's death, and died at last, apparently of grief for the loss of her favourite mistress.