Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/375

Rh He bit his lip and bent his eyes upon the ground in silence for a while.

"Then I must leave you," said he at length looking steadily upon me, as if with the last hope of detecting some token of irrepressible anguish or dismay awakened by those solemn words. "I must leave you. I cannot live here, and be for ever silent on the all-absorbing subject of my thoughts and wishes."

"Formerly, I believe, you spent but little of your time at home," I answered: "it will do you no harm to absent yourself again, for a while—if that be really necessary."

"If that be really possible," he muttered—"and can you bid me go so coolly! Do you really wish it?"

"Most certainly I do. If you cannot see me without tormenting me as you have lately done, I would gladly say farewell and never see you more."

He made no answer, but, bending from his horse, held out his hand towards me. I looked