"I have grieved," said Neville, as if answering her, though no word had been said, "very much grieved at the idea of seeing you no more; and yet it is for the best, I feel--and am sure. You do not know the usual unhappy tenour of my thoughts, nor the cause I have to look on life as an unwelcome burden. This is no new sentiment--it has been my companion since I was nine years old. At one time, before I knew how to rein and manage it, it was more intolerable than now; as a boy, it drove me to solitude--to abhorrence of the sight of man--to anger against God for creating me. These feelings have passed away; nay, more--I live for a purpose--a sacred purpose, that shall be fulfilled despite of every obstacle--every seeming impossibility. Too often, indeed, the difficulties in my way have made me fear that I should never succeed, and I have desponded; but never, till I saw you, did I know pleasure unconnected with my ultimate object. With you I have been at times taken out of myself; and I have almost forgotten--this must not be. I must resume my burden, nor form one thought beyond the resolution I have made to die, if need be, to secure success." "You must not speak thus," said Elizabeth, looking at once with pity and admiration on a face expressive of so much sensitive pride and sadness springing from a sense of injury. "If your purpose is a good one, as I must believe that it is, you will either succeed, or receive a compensation from your endeavours equivalent to success. We shall meet again, and I shall see you happier." "When I am happier," he said, with more than his usual earnestness, "we shall indeed meet--for I will seek you at the farthest end of the globe. Till then, I shrink from seeing any one who interests me--or from renewing sentiments of friendship which had better end here. You are too good and kind not to be made unhappy by the sight of suffering, and I must suffer till my end is accomplished. Even now I regret that I ever saw you--though that feeling springs from a foolish pride. For hereafter you will hear my name--and if you already do not know--you will learn the miserable tale that hangs upon it--you will hear me commiserated; you will learn why--and share the feeling. I would even avoid your pity--judge, then, how loathsome it is to receive that of others; and yet I must bear it, or fly them as I do. This will change. I have the fullest confidence that one day I may throw back on others the slur now cast upon me. This confidence, this full and sanguine trust, has altered me from what I once was; it has changed the impatience, the almost ferocity I felt as a boy, into fortitude and resolution." "Yes," said Elizabeth, "I remember once I saw you a long time since, when I was a mere girl, at Baden. Were you not there about four years ago? Do you not remember falling with your horse and dislocating your wrist?"