"Why should it have been better? It would have been unnatural not to have met each other." "So I thought. Why should not friends endure to say good-bye, even though their friendship be as dear as ours? I told Aunt Sarah that I should be angry with myself afterwards if I feared to tell you to come." "There is nothing to fear,--only that it is so wretched an ending," said he. "In one way I will not look on it as an ending. You and I cannot be married, Walter; but I shall always have your career to look to, and shall think of you as my dearest friend. I shall expect you to write to me;--not at first, but after a year or so. You will be able to write to me then as though you were my brother." "I shall never be able to do that." "Oh yes;--that is, if you will make the effort for my sake. I do not believe but what people can manage and mould their own wills if they will struggle hard enough. You must not be unhappy, Walter." "I am not so wise or self-confident as you, Mary. I shall be unhappy. I should be deceiving myself if I were to tell myself otherwise. There is nothing before me to make me happy. When I came home there was very little that I cared for, though I had the prospect of this money and thought that my cares in that respect were over. Then I met you, and the whole world seemed altered. I was happy even when I found how badly I had been treated. Now all that has gone, and I cannot think that I shall be happy again." "I mean to be happy, Walter." "I hope you may, dear." "There are gradations in happiness. The highest I ever came to yet was when you told me that you loved me." When she said that, he attempted to take her hand, but she withdrew from him, almost without a sign that she was doing so. "I have not quite lost that yet," she continued, "and I do not mean to lose it altogether. I shall always remember that you loved me; and you will not forget that I too loved you." "Forget it?--no, I don't exactly think that I shall forget it." "I don't know why it should make us altogether unhappy. For a time, I suppose, we shall be down-hearted." "I shall, I know. I can't pretend to such strength as to say that I can lose what I want, and not feel it." "We shall both feel it, Walter;--but I do not know that we must be miserable. When do you leave England?" "Nothing is settled. I have not had the heart to think of it. It will not be for a month or two yet. I suppose I shall stay out my regular Indian time." "And what shall you do with yourself?" "I have no plans at all, Mary. Sir Gregory has asked me to Dunripple, and I shall remain there probably till I am tired of it. It will be so pleasant, talking to my uncle of my father." "Do not talk of him at all, Walter. You will best forgive him by not talking of him. We shall hear, I suppose, of what you do from Parson John."