“But,” he said sadly, “we wander in the dark, not knowing which way to turn: and if we take a wrong step, whether from inadvertence or design, the fairest plan may be ruined, the most careful schemes destroyed.”
“But we have a guide,” I said, “and a light.”
“We follow not our leader, and we hide the light. Addison hath represented life under the image of a bridge, over which men are perpetually passing. But the bridge is set everywhere with hidden holes and pitfalls, so that he who steps into one straightway falls through and is drowned. We are not always drowned by the pitfalls of life, but, which is as bad, we are maimed and broken, so that for the rest of our course we go halt.”
“I pray, my lord,” I said, “that you may escape these pitfalls, and press on with the light before you to the goal of your most honourable ambition.”
“It is too late,” he said sadly. “Miss Kitty, you see in me the most wretched of mortals, who might, I would sometimes venture to think, have become the most happy.”
“You wretched, Lord Chudleigh?”—oh, beating heart!—“you wretched? Of all men you should be the most happy.”
“I have tried,” he said, “to escape from the consequences of a folly—nay, a crime. But it is impossible. I am fast bound and tied.” He took my hand and held it, while he added: “I may not say what I would: I may not even think, or hope, or dream of what might have been.”
“Might have been, my lord?”
“Which cannot, now, ever be. Kitty, I thought after I discovered that it was impossible that I would not return any more to Epsom Wells; in the country, or away on foreign travel, I might in time forget your face, your voice, your eyes—the virtues and graces which sit so well in a form so charming—the elevated soul——”
“My lord! my lord!” I cried, “spare me——Yet,” I added, “tell me all that is in your mind. If I cannot rid you of your burden, at least I may soothe your sorrow.”