Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/264

254 be, mingled with a little sternness in momentary resentment at what I suspected to be passing in his mind.

Had I forgotten my own prospects, my ardent love, my pertinacious hopes? It seemed like sacrilege to revert to them now, but I had not forgotten them. It was, however, with a gloomy sense of the darkness of those prospects, the fallacy of those hopes, and the vanity of that affection, that I reflected on those things as I remounted my horse and slowly journeyed homewards. Mrs. Huntingdon was free now; it was no longer a crime to think of her—but did she ever think of me?—not now—of course it was not to be expected—but would she, when this shock was over?—In all the course of her correspondence with her brother (our mutual friend, as she herself had called him), she had never mentioned me but once—and that was from necessity. This, alone, afforded strong presumption that I was already forgotten; yet this was not the worst: it might have