Page:Martin Chuzzlewit.djvu/234

184 Let him, if he please! By the time it reaches me, he will be in his grave: a satire on his own anger, God help him!"

"Martin! If you would but sometimes, in some quiet hour; beside the winter fire; in the summer air; when you hear gentle music, or think of Death, or Home, or Childhood; if you would at such a season resolve to think, but once a month, or even once a year, of him, or any one who ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I know!"

"If I believed that to be true, Mary," he replied, "I would resolve at no such time to bear him in my mind: wishing to spare myself the shame of such a weakness. I was not born to be the toy and puppet of any man, far less his; to whose pleasure and caprice, in return for any good he did me, my whole youth was sacrificed. It became between us two a fair exchange—a barter—and no more: and there is no such balance against me that I need throw in a mawkish forgiveness to poise the scale. He has forbidden all mention of me to you, I know," he added hastily. "Come! Has he not?"

"That was long ago," she returned; "immediately after your parting; before you had left the house. He has never done so since."

"He has never done so since, because he has seen no occasion," said Martin; "but that is of little consequence, one way or other. Let all allusion to him between you and me be interdicted from this time forth. And therefore, love—" he drew her quickly to him, for the time of parting had now come—"in the first letter that you write to me through the Post-office, addressed to New York; and in all the others that you send through Pinch; remember he has no existence, but has become to us as one who is dead. Now, God bless you! This is a strange place for such a meeting and such a parting; but our next meeting shall be in a better, and our next and last parting in a worse."

"One other question, Martin, I must ask. Have you provided money for this journey?"

"Have I?" cried Martin; it might have been in his pride; it might have been in his desire to set her mind at ease: "Have I provided money? Why, there's a question for an emigrant's wife! How could I move on land or sea without it, love?"

"I mean, enough."

"Enough! More than enough. Twenty times more than enough. A pocket-full. Mark and I, for all essential ends, are quite as rich as if we had the purse of Fortunatus in our baggage."

"The half-hour's a going!" cried Mr. Tapley.

"Good bye a hundred times!" cried Mary, in a trembling voice.

But how cold the comfort in Good bye! Mark Tapley knew it perfectly. Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience, perhaps from intuition. It is impossible to say; but however he knew it, his knowledge instinctively suggested to him the wisest course of proceeding that any man could have adopted under the circumstances. He was taken with a violent fit of sneezing, and was obliged to turn his head another way. In doing which, he, in a manner, fenced and screened the lovers into a corner by themselves.

There was a short pause, but Mark had an undefined sensation that