Substitute for
enmity indifference.'
She quitted the room: he remained there for some minutes, leaning on the
mantelpiece, and then rushed into the park. He hurried for some distance
with the rapid and uncertain step which betokens a tumultuous and
disordered mind. At length he found himself among the ruins of Dacre
Abbey. The silence and solemnity of the scene made him conscious, by the
contrast, of his own agitated existence; the desolation of the beautiful
ruin accorded with his own crushed and beautiful hopes. He sat himself
at the feet of the clustered columns, and, covering his face with his
hands, he wept.
They were the first tears that he had shed since childhood, and they
were agony. Men weep but once, but then their tears are blood. We think
almost their hearts must crack a little, so heartless are they ever
after. Enough of this.
It is bitter to leave our fathers hearth for the first time; bitter is
the eve of our return, when a thousand fears rise in our haunted souls.
Bitter are hope deferred, and self-reproach, and power unrecognised.
Bitter is poverty; bitterer still is debt.
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