Such was their leaving-taking—thus did they separate. Did they ever meet!
PART III.
In the history of the affections we know that circumstances sometimes occur, where duty and inclination maintain a conflict so nicely balanced so as to render it judicious not to exact a fulfillment of the former, lest by deranging the structure of our moral feelings, we render the mind either insensible to their existence, or incapable of regulating them. This observation applies only to those subordinate positions of life which involve no great principle of conduct, and violate no cardinal point of human duty. We ought neither to do evil nor suffer evil to be done, where our authority can prevent it, in order that good may follow. But in matters where our own will creates the offence, it is in some peculiar cases not only prudent but necessary to avoid straining a mind naturally delicate, beyond the powers which we know it to possess. We think, for instance, that it was wrong in Mr. Sinclair, at a moment when the act of separating from Osborne might have touched, the feelings of his daughter into that softness which lightens and relieves the heart, abruptly to suppress emotions so natural, by exacting a proof of obedience too severe and oppressive to the heart of one who loved as Jane did. She knew it was her duty to obey him the moment he expressed his wish; but he was bound by no duty to demand such an unnecessary proof of her obedience. The immediate consequences, however, made him sufficiently sensible of his error, and taught him that a knowledge of the human heart is the most difficult task which a parent has to learn.
Jane, conducted by her parents, having reached another apartment, sat down—her father taking a chair on one side, and her mother on the other.
“My darling,” said Mr. Sinclair, “I will never forget this proof of your obedience to me, on so trying an occasion. I knew I might rely upon my daughter.”
Jane made no reply to this, but sat apparently wrapped up in an ecstacy of calm and unbroken delight. The smile of happiness with which she contemplated Osborne, on taking her last look of him, was still upon her face, and contrasted so strongly with the agony which they knew she must have felt, that her parents, each from an apprehension of alarming the other, feared openly to allude to it, although they felt their hearts sink in dismay and terror.
“Jane, why do you not speak to your papa and me?” said her mother; “speak to us, love, speak to us—if it was only one word.”
She appeared not to hear this, nor to be at all affected by her mother’s voice or words. After the latter spoke she smiled again, and immediately putting up her long white fingers through the ringlets that shaded her cheek, she pulled them down as one would pressing them with slight convulsive energy as they passed through, her fingers.
“Henry, dear, what—what is the matter with her?” inquired her mother, whose face became pale with alarm. “Oh! what is wrong with my child!—she does not know us!—Gracious heaven, whats is this!”