She would have passed him, but he took gently hold of the rein of her bridle.—“I will walk with you, Clara,” he said; “the road is rough and dangerous—you ought not to ride fast.—I will walk along with you, and we will talk of former times now, more conveniently than in company.”
“True—true—very true, Mr. Tyrrel—it shall be as you say. My brother obliges me sometimes to go into company at that hateful place down yonder; and I do so because he likes it, and because the folks let me have my own way, and come and go as I list. Do you know, Tyrrel, that very often when I am there, and John has his eye on me, I can carry it on as gaily as if you and I had never met?”
“I would to God we never had,” said Tyrrel, in a trembling voice, “since this is to be the end of all!”
“And wherefore should not sorrow be the end of sin and of folly? And when did happiness come of disobedience?—And when did sound sleep visit a bloody pillow? That is what I say to myself, Tyrrel, and that is what you must learn to say too, and then you will bear your burden as cheerfully as I endure mine. If we have no more than our deserts, why should we complain?—You are shedding tears, I think—Is not that childish?—They say it is a relief—if so, weep on, and I will look another way.”
Tyrrel walked on by the pony's side, in vain endeavouring to compose himself so as to reply.
“Poor Tyrrel,” said Clara, after she had remained silent for some time—“Poor Frank Tyrrel!—Perhaps you will say in your turn, Poor Clara—but I am not so poor in spirit as you—the blast may bend, but it shall never break me.”
There was another long pause; for Tyrrel was unable to determine with himself in what strain he could address the unfortunate young lady, without awakening recollections equally painful to her feelings, and dangerous, when her precarious state of health was considered. At length she herself proceeded:—
“What needs all this, Tyrrel?—and indeed, why came you here?—Why did I find you but now brawling and quarrelling among the loudest of the brawlers and quarrellers of yonder idle and dissipated debauchees?—You were used to have more temper—more sense. Another person—ay, another that you and I once knew—he might have committed such a folly, and he would have acted perhaps in character.—But you, who pretend to wisdom—for shame, for shame!—And indeed, when we talk of that, what wisdom was there in coming hither at all?—or what good purpose can your remaining here serve?—Surely you need not come, either to renew your own unhappiness or to augment mine?”
“To augment yours—God forbid!” answered Tyrrel. “No—I came hither only because, after so many years of wandering, I longed to revisit the spot where all my hopes lay buried.”
“Ay—buried is the word,” she replied, “crushed down and buried when they budded fairest. I often think of it, Tyrrel; and there are times when, Heaven help me! I can think of little else.—Look at me—you remember what I was—see what grief and solitude have made me.”