Dearest love, goodbye. I could not have brought myself to say what you have said, but I know that you are right. It has not been my fault, dear. I did love you, and do love you as truly as any man ever loved a woman.
In answer to this Mary wrote to him to say that she would certainly see him when he came. She knew no reason, she said, why they should not meet. When she had written her note she asked her aunt’s opinion. Aunt Sarah would not take upon herself to say that no such meeting ought to take place, but it was very evident that she thought that it would be dangerous.
Captain Marrable did come down to Loring about the end of January, and the meeting did take place. Mary had stipulated that she should be alone when he called. He had suggested that they should walk out together, as had been their wont; but this she had declined, telling him that the sadness of such a walk would be too much for her, and saying to her aunt with a smile that were she once again out with him on the towing-path, there would be no chance of their ever coming home. “I could not ask him to turn back,” she said, “when I should know that it would be for the last time.” It was arranged, therefore, that the meeting should take place in the drawing-room at Uphill Lane.
He came into the room with a quick, uneasy step, and when he reached her he put his arm round her and kissed her. She had formed certain little resolutions on this subject. He should kiss her, if he pleased, once again when he went—and only once. And now, almost without a motion on her part that was perceptible, she took herself out of his arms. There should be no word about that if she could help it—but she was bound to remember that he was nothing to her now but a distant cousin. He must cease to be her lover, though she loved him. Nay—he had so ceased already. There must be no more laying of her head upon his shoulder, no more twisting of her fingers through his locks, no more looking into his eyes, no more amorous pressing of her lips against his own. Much as she loved him she must remember now that such outward signs of love as these would not befit her. “Walter,” she said, “I am so glad to see you! And yet I do not know but what it would have been better that you should have stayed away.”
“Why should it have been better? It would have been unnatural not to have met each other.”
“So I thought. Why should not friends endure to say goodbye, even though their friendship be as dear as ours? I told Aunt Sarah that I should be angry with myself afterwards if I feared to tell you to come.”
“There is nothing to fear—only that it is so wretched an ending,” said he.
“In one way I will not look on it as an ending. You and I cannot be married, Walter; but I shall always have your career to look to, and shall think of you as my dearest friend. I shall expect you to write to me;—not at first, but after a year or so. You will be able to write to me then as though you were my brother.”
“I shall never be able to do that.”
“Oh yes;—that is, if you will make the effort for my sake. I do not believe but what people can manage and mould their own wills if they will struggle hard enough. You must not be unhappy, Walter.”
“I am not so wise or self-confident as you, Mary. I shall be unhappy. I should be deceiving myself if I were to tell myself otherwise. There is nothing before me to make me happy. When I came home there was very little that I cared for, though I had the prospect of this money and thought that my cares in that respect were over. Then I met you, and the whole world seemed altered. I was happy even when I found how badly I had been treated. Now all that has gone, and I cannot think that I shall be happy again.”
“I mean to be happy, Walter.”
“I hope you may, dear.”
“There are gradations in happiness. The highest I ever came to yet was when you told me that you loved me.” When she said that, he attempted to take her hand, but she withdrew from him, almost without a sign that she was doing so. “I have not quite lost that yet,” she continued, “and I do not mean to lose it altogether. I shall always remember that you loved me; and you will not forget that I too loved you.”
“Forget it?—no, I don’t exactly think that I shall forget it.”
“I don’t know why it should make us altogether unhappy. For a time, I suppose, we shall be downhearted.”
“I shall, I know. I can’t pretend to such strength as to say that I can lose what I want, and not feel it.”
“We shall both feel it, Walter;—but I do not know that we must be miserable. When do you leave England?”
“Nothing is settled. I have not had the heart to think of it. It will
