"You know me too well, Maria--you judge me, and have ever judged me, too nobly--to suppose that I would seek to bind you to the fate of an exile, an outcast, or even a suspected man. I ask you not to tell me any of your own feelings towards me--I ask you not even to say one word of your own situation. Your heart--your hand even--may be engaged to some happier man----"
The words rushed from her heart, burst from her lips, without the act of her will; but she felt that she had never loved till then, and they would be spoken.
"Thank God!" said Henry, in a low voice, and then added, "well, then, dearest Maria, my mind is made up. I will cast this load from me--I will clear myself of all doubt, if it be in human power to do so; and if it be done--if I stand before the whole world exculpated from all charges but of deep, perhaps too deep, devotion to a father, then I will tell you how Henry Hayley has loved and thought of you from boyhood till now; how he loves you still--how he will love you till his last hour. You will find that his course has not been dishonourable or inglorious, and you shall decide whether he is to be as happy as his boyish dreams once pictured. And now, farewell for the present."
He pressed his lips upon her hand, and was departing; but a soft, low, musical voice caught his ear ere he reached the door.
"Henry," it said, "oh, not yet, Henry! do not leave me yet."
Henry Hayley turned at once, and seated himself beside her; he took her hand, and it remained in his, and when he at length departed, the sky was quite dark, but his heart had daylight in itself.
Three chapters to one group of people is almost more than it is fair to allow; and yet the fact of there being three in the group, as well as a strong predilection on my own part for chronological progression, must excuse my remaining attached to Henry Hayley and his fair companions, at least till that day had reached its close. Now the period of a day's close may be differently estimated, according as a man is astronomical, Judaical, ecclesiastical, or chronological. Some will have it that sunset closes the day; some say midnight is the day's end--which, of course, is a contradiction in terms; some one hour, some another; but as men have never been agreed upon the subject since the beginning of the world, and I am decidedly fond of paradoxes, I prefer midnight, and therefore declare that, when I say "the close of the day," I mean neither more nor less than twelve o'clock at night.