Currents of thought or emotion go on for a long time in the mind before a step is taken. The step came at last; Barnard began to omit his weekly call upon Rosa. First, he missed a week, then a fortnight, then three weeks. The commonplace woman for a time was perfectly satisfied with his explanations—the pressure of work in the spring season, and so on. It was quite right he should attend to the farm, since, if not, he could not marry her. The intervals between his visits were tedious, still they passed.
But when Barnard did not call for an entire month, an uneasy feeling came over her. She began to think about him in a different strain, and soon recollected numberless trifling circumstances which increased her anxiety. Rosa had never encouraged his extravagances, but she missed them. Certainly Barnard was not so attentive as he had been.
At last she determined to go over and see him, and did so. He accompanied her home, and, so far as outward manner was concerned, she found him unchanged. Her subtler instincts being aroused, she was all the same confirmed in her dread that Barnard was beginning not to care for her. As he did not call again, nor write, she was sure that he had ceased to love her.
This commonplace woman, accordingly, after weeping silently out of sight at night for a little while, composed herself, and addressed a short letter to her former lover. In a few simple sentences she told him that she saw plainly enough he was tired of her; and that being so, she wished him to consider himself perfectly free. She loved him with her whole heart, and she should always be his. That was all; there was no passion in the letter, but it was strictly true—she would always be his,
Barnard was deeply hurt—not at her conduct—but at his own. He felt a most pitiful coward to have won a woman’s heart and then to have left her like this. He was utterly ashamed of himself—this bitterness was the punishment of his romantic follies. Without the least trace of conceit on his part, he was aware that Rosa really loved him. Wherever he went, or whatever he did, here was a woman always thinking of him, and always adhering to him. Easy to absent himself from her presence, impossible to turn her mental gaze away.
The question may be asked, whether it was not better for him to have broken with her, than to have remained at her side always wishing to be away.
If anyone is disposed to greatly blame Barnard, two things must be borne in mind: firstly, that there had been no viciousness in his conduct; secondly, his youth. Even now he was but five-and-twenty. Not for an instant had he foreseen the result of his folly, and he now sincerely regretted it. Still, there the result was.
The cruelty to Rosa was very great. No fault, no frivolity, an earnest quiet girl, and suddenly cast down from the position of sedate happiness she reasonably expected. The circumstances were very hard upon her. Suppose, for a moment, we exonerate Martial from all blame, how cruel it was to Rosa that Felise should possess so beautiful a face!
The mere fact of Felise’s existence was a cruelty to her. The existence of one woman is incompatible with the happiness of another. But for Felise’s existence Barnard was in no degree responsible; fate had prepared this thing for Rosa to “thole,” that fine old English word which conveys the sense of enduring at the hands of something irresistible.
Martial saw the cruelty of it all to her, and that pity made him feel tenderer towards her than he had done for a long, long time. Forgetting her commonplaceness and his weariness, he thought of her in a sorrowful, far-off way, which, if Rosa could have known and understood, would have burnt her heart like molten iron. But for all his tenderness he did not go to her.
The bitterness of his extravagances recoiled on his own head. Memory constantly brought back to him some sentiment he had uttered, or fancied he experienced, and which now mocked at him.
There is nothing more terrible while it lasts than for a man to despise himself.
After several days spent in this way. Martial said to himself that he must do one of two things—either he must go back to Rosa and honourably carry out his promise, no matter at what cost to himself, or he must sell off the stock and emigrate. In the backwoods of America he could hide himself, and perhaps in time forget.
Though he was the tenant of fifteen hundred acres, his finances were in such a critical condition that to sell off and quit would be perhaps the wisest thing to do while yet fifty pounds remained to his credit. He should not see any beautiful faces in the backwoods. His rifle would console him; he took it down and looked at it—it was one of Lancaster’s small oval bores.
XIV
Swayed first one way and then the other, Barnard rose one morning extremely early, bridled Ruy, and started for the hills, resolved to ride to and fro till he had made up his mind, and then to abide by the decision he came to.
Destiny arranged that that very morning Felise, with her heart full of love for him, went up on the hill to see the sun rise.
Now, when Barnard at last saw her, he naturally rode in that direction. As he approached he recollected the unfortunate circumstances in which he was placed, and half turned
