"I leave you, Edgerton, with one regret--not that we part, for life

is full of partings, and the strong mind must be reconciled with

them, or it is nothing--but that I leave you so unlike your former

self. I wish I could do something for you."

I gave him my hand as as I spoke. He did not grasp--he rather

shrunk from it. An uncontrollable burst of feeling seemed suddenly

to gush from him as he spoke:-"Take no heed of me, Clifford--I am not worthy of YOUR thought."

"Ha! What do you mean?"

He spoke hastily, in manifest discomfiture:-"I am worthy of no man's thought."

"Pshaw! you are a hypochondriac."

"Would it were that!--But you go!--when?"

"In a week, perhaps."

"So soon? So very soon? Do you--do you carry your family with you

at once?"

There was great effort to speak this significant inquiry. I perceived

that. I perceived that his eyes were on the ground while it was

made. The question was offensive to me. It had a strange and painful

significance. It recalled the whole cause, the bitter cause of my

resolve for exile; and I could not control the altered tones of

my voice in answering, which I did with some causticity of feeling,

which necessarily entered into my utterance.

"Family, surely! My wife only! No great charge, I'm thinking, and

her health needs an early change. Would you have me leave HER? I

have no other family, you know!"

The dialogue, carried on with restraint before, was shortened by

this; and, after a few business remarks, which were necessary to

our office concerns, he pleaded an engagement to get away. He left

me with some soreness upon my mind, which formed its expression in

a brief soliloquy.

"You would have the path made even freer than before, would you?

It does not content you, these long morning meditations--these

pretended labors of the painting-room, the suspicious husband

withdrawn, and the wife, neither scorning nor consenting, willing

to believe in that devotion to the art which is properly a devotion

to herself? These are not sufficient opportunities, eh? There

were--more room for landscape, appoint you, Mr. Edgerton!--Ah!

could I but know all. Could I be sure that she did love him! Could

I be sure that she did not! That is the curse--that doubt!--Will

it remain so? No! no! Once removed--once in those forest regions,

it can not be that she will repine for anything. She MUST love me

then--she will feel anew the first fond passion. She will forget

these passing fancies. They WILL pass! She is young. The image

will haunt her no longer--at least, it will no longer haunt me!"

So I spoke, but I was not so sure of that last. The doubt did not

trouble me, however. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

But I had another test yet to try. I wished to see how Julia would

receive the communication of my purpose. As yet she knew nothing

of my contemplated departure. "It will surprise her," I thought to

myself. "In that surprise she will show how much our removal will

distress her!"




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