While thus she unwittingly thought, and sometimes watched through the night, starting with convulsed rapture at every sound, because it might possibly be the harbinger of him, he was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!—he sometimes thought on thee—he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell from her lips, he remembered with a sigh thy candour—that open sincerity which dwelt upon thy tongue, and seemed to vie with thy undisguised features, to charm the listener even beyond the spectator. While Miss Sedgeley eagerly grasped at all the gifts he offered, he could not but call to mind “that Agnes’s declining hand was always closed, and her looks forbidding, every time he proffered such disrespectful tokens of his love.” He recollected the softness which beamed from her eyes, the blush on her face at his approach, while he could never discern one glance of tenderness from the niece of Lord Bendham: and the artificial bloom on her cheeks was nearly as disgusting as the ill-conducted artifice with which she attempted gentleness and love.
But all these impediments were only observed as trials of his fortitude—his prudence could overcome his aversion, and thus he valued himself upon his manly firmness.
’Twas now, that William being rid, by the peevishness of Agnes, most honourably of all future ties to her, and the day of his marriage with Miss Sedgeley being fixed, that Henry, with the rest of the house, learnt what to them was news. The first dart of Henry’s eye upon his cousin, when, in his presence, he was told of the intended union, caused a reddening on the face of the latter: he always fancied Henry saw his thoughts; and he knew that Henry in return would give him his. On the present occasion, no sooner were they alone, and Henry began to utter them, than William charged him—“Not to dare to proceed; for that, too long accustomed to trifle, the time was come when serious matters could alone employ his time; and when men of approved sense must take place of friends and confidants like him.”
Henry replied, “The love, the sincerity of friends, I thought, were their best qualities: these I possess.”
“But you do not possess knowledge.”
“If that be knowledge which has of late estranged you from all who bear you a sincere affection; which imprints every day more and more upon your features the marks of gloomy inquietude; am I not happier in my ignorance?”
“Do not torment me with your ineffectual reasoning.”
“I called at the cottage of poor Agnes the other day,” returned Henry: “her father and mother were taking their homely meal alone; and when I asked for their daughter, they wept and said—Agnes was not the girl she had been.”
William cast his eyes on the floor.
Henry proceeded—“They said a sickness, which they feared would bring her to the grave, had preyed upon her for some time past. They had procured a doctor: but no remedy was found, and they feared the worst.”