--Your affectionate, 'C. M, EDMONSTONE.
P. S. The baby is very small, but so plump and healthy, that no one attempts to be uneasy about her.'
Never did letter come in better time to raise a desponding heart. Of Amabel's forgiveness he was already certain; but that she should have made Charles his friend was a wonder beyond all others. It gave him more hope for the future than he had yet been able to entertain, and showed him that the former note was no studied renunciation of him, but only an ebullition of Mr. Edmonstone's disappointment.
It gave him spirit enough to undertake what he had long been meditating, but without energy to set about it--an expedition to Stylehurst. Hitherto it had been his first walk on coming to St. Mildred's, but now the distance across the moor was far beyond his powers; and even that length of ride was a great enterprise. It was much further by the carriage road, and his sister never liked going there. He had never failed to visit his old home till last year, and he felt almost glad that he had not carried his thoughts, at that time, to his father's grave. It was strange that, with so many more important burdens on his mind, it had been this apparent trivial omission, this slight to Stylehurst, that, in both his illnesses, had been the most frequently recurring idea that had tormented him in his delirium. So deeply, securely fixed is the love of the home of childhood in men of his mould, in whom it is perhaps the most deeply rooted of all affections.
Without telling his sister his intention, he hired a horse, and pursued the familiar moorland tracks. He passed South Moor Farm; it gave him too great a pang to look at it; he rode on across the hills where he used to walk with his sisters, and looked down into narrow valleys where he had often wandered with his fishing-rod, lost in musings on plans for attaining distinction, and seeing himself the greatest man of his day. Little had he then guessed the misery which would place him in the way to the coveted elevation, or how he would loathe it when it lay within his grasp.
There were the trees round the vicarage, the church spire, the cottages, whose old rough aspect, he knew so well, the whole scene, once 'redolent of joy and youth:' but how unable to breathe on him a second spring! He put up his horse at the village inn, and went to make his first call on Susan, the old clerk's wife, and one of the persons in all the world who loved him best. He knocked, opened the door, and saw her, startled from her tea-drinking, looking at him as a stranger.