Forrester stretched out his hand, as I thought, somewhat formally; then motioning me to a seat opposite to him, waited in silence till the landlord had left the room. "You are surprised I should have asked you to come here," he said. "No," I replied, interrupting him, hastily; "but I am surprised we did not hear from you sooner. In the name of Heaven, what can have been the cause of your silence?" "How long is it since I saw you?" "How long? Upward of a fortnight, and we expected a letter every day. But the world forgets us when we forget ourselves." "It might be well with some people, if the world _did_ forget them," he rejoined; "but that is no affair of mine. I have not forgotten you, whatever you may have deserved from others." This was uttered in a tone of asperity unusual with Forrester. But I felt that I had provoked it by the unacknowledging spirit in which I had met him after all the trouble he had taken on my account, and I was proceeding to make the best apology I could, when he cut me short with a wave of his hand, and entered upon the business that brought us together. "You were aware when I undertook to negotiate between you and the husband of Astræa, that I was his friend as well as yours. He had even stronger claims upon my friendship; I had known him in our boyhood; and when I returned, after an interval of years, and found him bereaved, as I had been myself--and by the same person--you can not be astonished that I should feel some interest in his situation." "I do not blame you for that," I returned, hardly knowing what I said, I was so amazed by the tone and substance of this unexpected opening. "Blame me?" reiterated Forrester. "Blame me for sympathizing with an early friend, whose life, like my own, had been blasted to the root? You must suppose my nature to be something different from that of other men, if you imagine I could witness his sufferings unmoved." "To what is this intended to lead?" I demanded. "When I saw you last, your sympathies were not so exclusive. You were then, Forrester, the friend of both?" "Am I not so still? What brings me here? It is not exactly the sort of weather a man would select for a trip of pleasure into the country. What brings me here? Your business. Does this look like a failure of friendship? You are soured--isolation and self-reproaches, which pride will not suffer you to acknowledge, have turned your blood to acid. You are ready to quarrel for straws, and your whole care is how to escape the responsibility which passion and selfishness have brought upon you." I leaped from my chair at these words, and looked fiercely at Forrester. He was perfectly calm, and continued to speak in a voice of freezing quietness. "Pray, resume your seat. It is sheer waste of time to lose your temper with me. Either I must speak candidly to you, or there is an end to our intercourse."