“Can you doubt it? Need you do more than ask yourself, How do you look on your own case? And yet you are not going to bestow a great fortune. I 'm certain that, do what you will, your heart tells you it is a slave's bargain.” “Did May tell you so?” said he, in a voice thick with passion. “No.” “Did she ever hint as much?” “No.” “Do you believe that any one ever dared to say it?” “As to that, I can't say; the world is very daring, and says a great many naughty things without much troubling itself about their correctness.” “It may spare its censure on the present occasion, then.” “Is it that you will not exact her compliance?” “I will not.” “How well I read you,” cried she, catching up his cold and still reluctant hand between both her own; “how truly I understood your noble, generous nature! It was but yesterday I was writing about you to a very dear friend, who had asked me when the marriage was to take place, and I said: 'If I have any skill in deciphering character, I should say, Never. Charles Heathcote is not the man to live a pensioner on a wife's rental; he is far more likely to take service again as a soldier, and win a glorious name amongst those who are now reconquering India. His daring spirit chafes against the inglorious idleness of his present life, and I 'd not wonder any morning to see his place vacant at the breakfast-table, and to hear he had sailed for Alexandria.'” “You do me a fuller justice than many who have known me longer,” said he, pensively. “Because I read you more carefully,--because I considered you without any disturbing element of self-interest; and if I was now and then angry at the lethargic indolence of your daily life, I used to correct myself and say, 'Be patient; his time is coming; and when the hour has once struck for him, he 'll dally no longer!'” “And my poor father--” “Say, rather, your proud father, for he is the man to appreciate your noble resolution, and feel proud of his son.” “But to leave him--to desert him--” “It is no eternal separation. In a year or two you will rejoin him, never to part again. Take my word for it, the consciousness that his son is accomplishing a high duty will be a strong fund of consolation for absence. It is to mistake him to suppose that he could look on your present life without deep regret.” “Ah! is that so?” cried he, with an expression of pain. “He has never owned as much to me; but I have read it in him, just as I have read in _you_ that you are not the man to stoop to an ignominious position to purchase a life of ease and luxury.” “You were right there!” said he, warmly. “Of course I was. I could not be mistaken.” “You shall not be, at all events,” said he, hurriedly. “How cold your hand is! Let us return to the house.” And they walked back in silence to the door. CHAPTER XV. MRS. PENTHONY MORRIS AT HER WRITING-TABLE