"Hush!" said Charles, "I have five-and-twenty pounds by me. May I keep that?"
"I will write you a check for five hundred. I shall move your resolution, Charles," said Cuthbert.
"Never, so help me God!" said Charles; "it only remains to say good-bye. I leave this room without a hard thought towards any one in it. I am at peace with all the world. Father Mackworth, I beg your forgiveness. I have been often rude and brutal to you. I suppose that you always meant kindly to me. Good-bye."
He shook hands with Mackworth, then with the Tiernays; then he offered his hand to William, who took it smiling; and, lastly, he went up to Cuthbert, and kissed him on the cheek, and then walked out of the door into the hall.
William, as he was going, turned as though to speak to Cuthbert, but Cuthbert had risen, and he paused a moment.
Cuthbert had risen, and stood looking wildly about him; then he said, "Oh, my God, he is gone!" And then he broke through them, and ran out into the hall, crying, "Charles, Charles, come back. Only one more word, Charles." And then they saw Charles pause, and Cuthbert kneel down before him, calling him his own dear brother, and saying he would die for him. And then Father Tiernay hastily shut the library door, and left those two wild hearts out in the old hall together alone.
Father Tiernay came back to William, and took both his hands. "What are you going to do?" he said.
"I am going to follow him wherever he goes," said William. "I am never going to leave him again. If he goes to the world's end, I will be with him."
"Brave fellow!" said Tiernay. "If he goes from here, and is lost sight of, we may never see him again. If you go with him, you may change his resolution."
"That I shall never do," said William; "I know him too well. But I'll save him from what I am frightened to think of. I will go to him now. I shall see you again directly; but I must go to him."