“But, my dear fellow, hear reason; don’t decide hastily. You don’t know to what you are, perhaps, condemning yourself, and—others besides yourself.”
“It is because I am considering others,” answered Jack, as he stood up and looked, half pleadingly, at the silver moon, the silent stars, the clear heavens, the wonder and majesty of night, as who should strive to win an answer from an oracle. “It is for the sake of others, for the sake of her, that I reject your offer. I should only blend your ruin with my own—foredoomed, it may be, like much else that happens in this melancholy, mysterious life of ours. And now, God bless you. I will start early. I could not say farewell to Maud. Tell her my words, and—to forget me.”
The two men grasped each other’s hands silently, and without other speech each went to his own apartment.
Before sunrise Jack left an uneasy pillow, and, dressing hastily, walked quietly out of the house, and into the horse-paddock, or an enclosure so designated, which in former days had contained adequate nutriment for all inmates. He found his attenuated steed, and caught him without much difficulty. The unlucky animal was standing by a box tree, staring vacantly upwards, and refreshing himself from time to time with a vigorous bite at the bark, which he chewed with evident relish. Saddling up at the stable, he walked towards the outer sliprails, intending to avoid the dismounting at that rude substitute for a gate, about which he had often rallied Mark. He had just concluded the taking down and replacing of these antiquated entrance-bars, and, with an audible sigh, was about to mount, when he saw Maud coming along the short-cut footpath from the house, which led to the garden gate. She waved her hand. He had no choice—no wish, but to stop. She was his love. She was before his eyes once again. He had tried to spare her—perhaps himself. But it was not to be.
She came swiftly up this dusty path, in the clear warm morning light, her hair catching a gleam of the level sun, her cheek faintly tinted with a sudden glow, her lips apart, her eyes burning bright. She looked at him, for one moment, with the honest tenderness of a woman, pure from the suspicion of coquetry—loving, and not ashamed though the world should witness her love.
“John,” she said, in a tone of soft, yet deep reproach, “were you going away, for ever perhaps, and without a word of farewell?”
“Was it not better so?” he murmured, taking her hand in both of his, and looking into her eyes with mingled gloom and passion, as though he had been Leonora’s lover, doubting, pitying, yet compelled to bid her forth to the midnight journey on the phantom steed.
“Better! why should it be better?” said she, with a wild terror in her voice and looks. “Have you no pity for yourself—for me—that you despise the advice of your best friends, and insist upon dooming yourself to poverty and obscurity? I knew Mark was going to speak to you, and he told me that he would help—like a good fellow as he is—you or—us—why should I falter with the word?—to make a new commencement. Why, why are you so proud, so unyielding, so unwilling to sacrifice your pride for my sake? You cannot care for me!”
Here the excited girl flung herself forward, as if she would have humbled herself in the dust before him, while a storm of sobs shook her bosom, and caused her whole form to tremble as if in an ague fit.
Jack raised her tenderly in his arms, and, pouring forth every name of love, strove to soothe and pacify her.