Martin did not sit down but walked up to the window, and stood there looking out. He turned round after a few moments to speak, but hastily averted his head again, without doing so.
“What has happened, Martin?” Tom anxiously inquired. “My dear fellow, what bad news do you bring?”
“Oh, Tom!” replied Martin, in a tone of deep reproach. “To hear you feign that interest in anything that happens to me, hurts me even more than your ungenerous dealing.”
“My ungenerous dealing! Martin! My—” Tom could say no more.
“How could you, Tom, how could you suffer me to thank you so fervently and sincerely for your friendship; and not tell me, like a man, that you had deserted me! Was it true, Tom! Was it honest! Was it worthy of what you used to be—of what I am sure you used to be—to tempt me, when you had turned against me, into pouring out my heart! Oh, Tom!”
His tone was one of such strong injury and yet of so much grief for the loss of a friend he had trusted in; it expressed such high past love for Tom, and so much sorrow and compassion for his supposed unworthiness; that Tom, for a moment, put his hand before his face, and had no more power of justifying himself, than if he had been a monster of deceit and falsehood.
“I protest, as I must die,” said Martin, “that I grieve over the loss of what I thought you; and have no anger in the recollection of my own injuries. It is only at such a time, and after such a discovery, that we know the full measure of our old regard for the subject of it. I swear, little as I showed it; little as I know I showed it; that when I had the least consideration for you, Tom, I loved you like a brother.”
Tom was composed by this time, and might have been the Spirit of Truth, in a homely dress—it very often wears a homely dress, thank God!—when he replied to him.
“Martin,” he said, “I don’t know what is in your mind, or who has abused it, or by what extraordinary means. But the means are false. There is no truth whatever in the impression under which you labour. It is a delusion from first to last; and I warn you that you will deeply regret the wrong you do me. I can honestly say that I have been true to you, and to myself. You will be very sorry for this. Indeed, you will be very sorry for it, Martin.”
“I am sorry,” returned Martin, shaking his head. “I think I never knew what it was to be sorry in my heart, until now.”
“At least,” said Tom, “if I had always been what you charge me with being now, and had never had a place in your regard, but had always been despised by you, and had always deserved it, you should tell me in what you have found me to be treacherous; and on what grounds you proceed. I do not intreat you, therefore, to give me that satisfaction as a favour, Martin, but I ask it of you as a right.”
“My own eyes are my witnesses,” returned Martin. “Am I to believe them?”
“No,” said Tom, calmly. “Not if they accuse me.”
“Your own words. Your own manner,” pursued Martin. “Am I to believe them?”
“No,” replied Tom, calmly. “Not if they accuse me. But they never have accused me. Whoever has perverted them to such a purpose, has wronged me almost as cruelly”—his calmness rather failed him here—“as you have done.”
“I came here,” said Martin; “and I appeal to your good sister to hear me—”
“Not to her,” interrupted Tom. “Pray, do not appeal to her. She will never believe you.”
He drew her arm through his own, as he said it.
“I believe it, Tom!”
“No, no,” cried Tom, “of course not. I said so. Why, tut, tut, tut. What a silly little thing you are!”
“I never meant,” said Martin, hastily, “to appeal to you against your brother. Do not think me so unmanly and unkind. I merely appealed to you to hear my declaration, that I came here for no purpose of reproach—I have not one reproach to vent—but in deep regret. You could not know in what bitterness of regret, unless you knew how often I have thought of Tom; how long in almost hopeless circumstances, I have looked forward to the better estimation of his friendship; and how steadfastly I have believed and trusted in him.”
“Tut, tut,” said Tom, stopping her as she was about to speak. “He is mistaken. He is deceived. Why should you mind? He is sure to be set right at last.”
“Heaven bless the day that sets me right!” cried Martin, “if it could ever come!”
“Amen!” said Tom. “And it will!”
Martin paused, and then said in a still milder voice:
“You have chosen for yourself, Tom, and will be relieved by our parting. It is not an angry one. There is no anger on my side—”
“There is none on mine,” said Tom.
“—It is merely what you have brought about, and worked to bring about. I say again, you have chosen for yourself. You have made the choice that might have been expected in most people situated as you are, but which I did not expect in you. For that, perhaps, I should blame my own judgment more than you. There is wealth and favour worth having, on one side; and there is the worthless friendship of an abandoned, struggling fellow, on the other. You were free to make your election, and you made it; and the choice was not difficult. But those who have not the courage to resist such temptations, should have the courage to avow what they have yielded to them; and
