This, indeed, far from its being a motive to move her heart in his favour, closed it the more against him; as it proved she thought that from his weakness of character he never could deserve to be intrusted with the happiness of her child.
Bitter, therefore, was his mortification, when, on expressing the hopes to which her kindness had given birth, she assured him that her sentiments remained unaltered.
"Then, madam," cried he, "why were you so cruel as to save my life?"
"Young man," she gravely replied, "was it not my duty to try to save your life, that you might try to amend it? Were you prepared to meet that terrible tribunal from which even the most perfect shrink back appalled?"
On his complete recovery, my mother and I proceeded to the house of my uncle, now become our property; and thence we returned home. The following vacation Seymour finally left college, and again went abroad.
He wrote a farewell letter to my mother, as eloquent as gratitude and even filial affection could make it: she wept over it and exclaimed,
"Oh, that the generous-hearted creature who wrote this should not be all I wish him! He is like a beautiful but unsupported edifice, fair to behold, but dangerous to lean against!"
There was one part of the letter, however, which my mother did not understand: I fancied that I did, though I did not own it. He assured her, that in spite of everything he carried more hope away in his heart than he had ever yet known: hope, and even a _precious conviction_ which he _had never known before_, and which he was sure his cousin Helen would wish him to possess, as it would be to him the _strongest shield_ against _temptation_.
"My dear," said my mother, after long consideration, "how stupid I have been not to understand this sooner! He certainly means that he is become very religious: and that this hope, this sweet conviction, are faith and another world. Dear Seymour, I am so glad! for though I do not choose you should marry a Methodist, and one extreme is to me as unpleasant as another, still I believe Methodists to be a very happy people; and I hope Seymour, for his own sake, will not change again."
I smiled, but said nothing; for I put a very different interpretation on his words. As it appeared to me, his _hope_ and _conviction_ were that he possessed _my love_, and that my compliance with my mother's will was wholly against my own; for I recollected the tone in which I had replied to his question concerning my engagement to De Walden, "Oh, no! no!" and also my scream of agony in spite of his alarming weakness when he persevered in leaving us, and the anxiety with which I looked at him at the gates of Magdalen. Yes, when we exchanged that look, I felt that our hearts understood each other, and I was sure that the shield to which Seymour alluded was his conviction of my love.