As soon as my recollection returned, I stole, like a culprit, to my own apartment, where, locking myself in, I fell into a reverie; in which stifled self-reproach, resentment against Miss Arnold, and an undefined dread of the consequences of Maitland's displeasure, were but faintly relieved by complacency towards my own victorious charms. Maitland's parting words rung in my ears; and though I endeavoured to persuade myself that they were dictated by a resentment which could not resist the slightest concession from me, they never recurred to my mind unattended by some degree of alarm. I was determined, however, that no consideration should tempt me to betray the cause of my sex, by humbling myself before a proud lover; 'and, if he be resolved to break my chains, let him do so,' said I, 'if he can.' I justly considered the loss of a lover as no very grievous misfortune. Alas! I could not then estimate the evil of losing such a friend as Maitland.
The next morning he came early to claim his audience; not such as I had seen him the evening before; but calm, self-possessed, and dignified. He entered upon his subject with apparent effort; telling me that he was come to give me, if I had the patience to receive it, the explanation to which he conceived me entitled, after the inadvertencies which had at different times betrayed his secret. Provoked by his composure, I answered, that 'explanation was quite unnecessary, since I did not apprehend that either his conduct or motives could at all affect me.'
'Suffer me then,' said he, mildly, 'to explain them for my own sake, that I may, if I can, escape the imputation of caprice.' I made some light, silly reply; and, affecting the utmost indifference, took my knotting and sat down. 'Have you no curiosity,' said Maitland, 'to know how you won and how you have lost a heart that could have loved you faithfully? Though my affections are of no value to you, you may one day prize those which the same errors might alienate.'
'That is not very likely, sir,' said I. 'I shall probably not approach so near the last stage of celibacy as to catch my advantage of any wandering fancy which may cross a man's mind.'
'This was no wandering fancy,' said Maitland, with calm seriousness. 'You are the first woman I ever loved; and I shall retain the most tender, the most peculiar interest in your welfare, long after what is painful in my present feelings has passed away. But I must fly while I can—before I lose the power to relinquish what I know it would be misery to obtain.'
'Oh, sir, I assure you that this is a misery I should spare you,' cried I; my heart swelling with impatience at a style of profession, for it cannot be called courtship, to which I was so little accustomed.
'Now this is childish,' said Maitland. 'Are you angry at having escaped being teazed with useless importunity? If you would have me feel all the pang of leaving you, call back the candour and sweetness that first bewitched me. For it was not your beauty, Ellen. I had seen you more than once ere I observed that you were beautiful, and twenty times ere I felt it. It was your playful simplicity, your want of all design, your perfect transparency of mind, that won upon me before I was aware; and when I was weary of toil and sick of the heartlessness and duplicity of mankind, I turned to you, and thought—, it matters not what.'
Maitland paused, but I was in no humour to break the silence. My anger gave place to a more gentle feeling. I felt that I had possessed, that I had lost, the approbation of Maitland, and the tears were rising to my eyes; but the fear that he should ascribe them to regret for the loss of his stoic-love, forced them back to the proud heart.
'Yet,' continued Maitland, 'I perceived, pardon my plainness, that your habits and inclinations were such as must be fatal to every plan of domestic comfort; and at four-and-thirty a man begins to foresee, that, after the raptures of the lover are past, the husband has a long life before him; in which he must either share his joys and his sorrows with a friend, or exact the submission of an inferior. To be a restraint upon your pleasure is what I could not endure; yet otherwise they must have interfered with every pursuit of my life,—nay, must every hour have shocked my perceptions of right and wrong. Nor is this all,' continued Maitland, guiding my comprehension by the increased solemnity of his manner. 'Who that seeks a friend would choose one who would consider his employments as irksome, his pleasures as fantastic, his hopes as a dream?—one who would regard the object of his supreme desire as men do a fearful vision, visiting them unwelcome in their hours of darkness, but slighted or forgotten in every happier season? No, Ellen! the wife of a Christian must be more than the toy of his leisure;—she must be his fellow-labourer, his fellow-worshipper.'
'Very well, sir!' interrupted I, my spirit of impatience again beginning to stir. 'Enough of my disqualifications for an office which I really have no ambition to fill.'