The hour of release had come. He took out a plain gold locket, which had always been worn unseen, and detached it from its guard. He opened it, and looked long and sadly at the fair face that it contained. It was a delicately-painted photograph, true to life; and locket and portrait had been Nelly’s first gift. The smile was her own smile, frank and bright; the brown eyes seemed to look straight at the gazer. “O Nelly,” he said, kissing the picture, “why couldn’t I love you better? Thank God for this painless parting! No wonder that you wearied of me, dear; you will be a thousand times freer and happier without me.”
Presently he came downstairs, and entered the parlour with the locket and a little packet of letters. These he gave silently into Mr. Channell’s hands.
“Morgan,” said Robert Channell, “I am heartily sorry for this. Don’t think that I shall cease to feel for you as a friend, because I cannot have you for a son-in-law.”
“I shall never forget all your kindness,” Morgan answered, in a low voice. “But I shall soon leave this place, Mr. Channell.”
“Better so, perhaps,” Robert responded. “You ought to labour in a larger sphere. You have great capacities for hard work, Morgan.”
Then the two men parted with a close hand-shake. And Mr. Channell looked back to say, almost carelessly,—
“My family have migrated to Southsea for a month or two. I follow them to-morrow.”
It would be too much to say that the curate “regained his freedom with a sigh.” Yet certain it is that this unlooked-for release set his heart aching; it might be that his amour propre was slightly wounded, for was it not a little hard to find that the girl for whom he had been making a martyr of himself could do very well without him? He had climbed the height of self-sacrifice only to find deliverance. The spirit of sacrifice had been required of him, but the crowning act was not demanded.
He read Nelly’s note again. It was a very commonplace little letter, written in a sloping, feminine hand. She used that stereotyped phrase which, hackneyed as it is, does as well or better than any other, “I feel we are not suited for each other.” This was the sole excuse offered for breaking the engagement, and surely it was excuse enough.