“I do not know how to write,” he said, “though you tell me to write. Dear Kate, dearest Kate--you will always be dearest to me.--This may pass over, and be to you as the merest dream; but to me it must always be the centre and heart of my life. I don’t know what to say to you. I have not written, not out of lack of love, but lack of hope. If I could think I was any way necessary to you--if I could feel you wanted me--but your sweet life is so complete; and what is mine to be tacked on to it? I don’t know what to say. Silence seems the best. Dear! dearest! you are so bright that my heart fails me when I look at you. I drop down into the shade, and there seems nothing left for me but to keep still. I try to rouse myself with the thought of what you say--that you want me to write, that _you are anxious_--anxious about me! And you mean it, dear--you mean it, I know; but the words have a soft meaning to you different from their meaning to me. And you have no need of me, Kate. I feel it, and that takes the words out of my mouth, and all the courage out of my heart.
“I was at Fernwood to-day, and saw you, though you did not see me. You were walking in the little footpath near the avenue. Ah, Kate! but for that I think I could have gone to you, and said some things I cannot write. Do not be grieved in your kind heart because I am leaving Camelford. It was a mistake, but I was to blame. I am going home, and I don’t quite know what I shall do; but time, perhaps, will make the way clear. Dearest, if ever you should want me--but how should you want me? God bless you! I have no claim to make, nor plea to put forth; but I am always and ever yours--always and for ever, whatever may happen--yours and yours only to command,
He put the two letters into their envelopes, and sealed and put them into the post with his own hand as he went to the station. He carried all his possessions with him--not merely the portmanteau; and he was dead tired--so tired that he would have passed Fanshawe station and gone on perhaps to London--for he had dropt asleep in the train--but for the guard, who knew him. When he found himself on the little platform at Fanshawe, chilly and stupid as a man is who has just awakened from sleep, the only strong feeling in his mind was an overwhelming desire to get to bed. He did not seem capable of realising that he had got home again, after his disastrous voyage into the world--he only thought of going to sleep; and it was not his mother’s wondering welcome he was thinking of, or the questions they would ask him, but a pleasant vision of his own room, with the fire burning in the grate, and the white fragrant sheets opened up and inviting him to rest. He felt half asleep when he crossed the threshold of the Rectory, and walked into the drawing-room to his mother, who gave a shriek of mingled delight and alarm at so unlooked-for an apparition. “John, you are ill; something has happened,” Mrs Mitford cried out, in an agony of apprehension. “I am only sleepy, mother,” he said. That was all he could say. He sat down and smiled at her, and told her how tired he was. “Nothing particular has happened, except in my own mind,” he added, when he came to himself a little, “and not much even there. I am awfully tired. Don’t ask me anything, and don’t be unhappy. There is nothing to be unhappy about. You shall know it all to-morrow. But please, mother, let me go to bed.”