She put her hand into his, and, overcome by the dead anguish at her heart, burst into tears. He drew her to his breast. None can know what that anguish was to her, even of the parting. He held her to him and soothed her sobs, now with a loving look, now with a gentle action; and then he broke into words of passionate entreaty, that she would retract her cruel determination, and suffer him to speak to her father. But he little knew Mary Anne Thornycroft if he thought that she would yield.
"Say no more; it is quite useless. Oh, Robert, don't you see it is as bitter for me as for you?"
"No; or you would not inflict it."
"Strive to forget me, Robert," she murmured. "We have been very dear to each other, but you must find some one else now. Perhaps we may meet in after life--when you are a happy man with wife and children!"
He went with her to the churchyard gates, and watched her as she turned to her home. And so they parted. Robert Hunter retraced his steps up the churchyard, and from behind a gravestone, where he had laid them out of sight, took up his little black travelling-bag, and the rolled-up coat, the counterpart of which had proved so unlucky a coat for the Red Court Farm. He never intended to put it on again--at least in the neighbourhood of Coastdown. Then he set off to walk to Jutpoint, avoiding the road by means of a bypath, as he had set off to walk that guilty night some weeks before.
The night had clouded over, the stars disappeared, the moon was not seen. Drops of rain began to fall, threatening a heavy shower. On it came, thicker and faster; wetter and wetter got he; but it may be questioned whether he gave to it one single thought.
His reflections were buried quite as much in the past as in the present. He murmured to himself the word "RETRIBUTION." He asked how he could ever have dreamt of indulging a prospect of happiness; he almost laughed at the utter mockery of the hope. As he had blighted his wife's life, so had Mary Anne Thornycroft, his late and only love, now blighted his. She--poor Clara--had died of the pain; he, of sterner stuff, must carry it along with him. Amid his days of labour, through his nights of perhaps broken rest, it would, lie upon him--a well-earned recompense! No murmur came forth from his heart or lips; he simply bowed his head in acknowledgment of the justice. God was ever true. And Robert Hunter lifted his hat in the pouring rain, and raised his eyes to heaven in sad thankfulness that the pain his sin had caused was at length made clear to him.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
In the Dog-cart to Jutpoint.
But there's something yet to tell of the evening. It was getting towards dusk when Isaac Thornycroft went his way to Captain Copp's intending boldly to ask Miss Chester to take a walk with him, should there be no chance of getting a minute with her alone at home.