umed.

In the course of the next few days, however, they could not fail to
find occasion to revive their quarrel. When his father enquired about
the present state of theology at that University, Clement endeavoured
to turn the conversation to general subjects; but the farther he
retreated, the hotter grew his father in pursuit. Often an anxious, and
sometimes an indignant look from his mother, would come to support him
in his resolution to avoid all plain speaking on this subject; but
whenever he broke off, or was forced to say a thing that to him meant
nothing, the awkward silence fell upon his spirits, and chilled him to
the heart Marlene only was always able to recover the proper tone. But
he saw that she too was grieved, and therefore he avoided her when she
was alone. He knew that she would question him, and from her he could
have concealed nothing. A shade came over him now whenever he saw her.
Was it the memory of that childish promise he had long since broken?
Was it the feeling that in the schism of opinion that threatened to
estrange him from his parents she remained standing on their side?

And yet he felt his tenderness for her more irresistibly than ever; it
was a thing he found impossible to deny, but which he did strive most
resolutely to conquer. He was too much absorbed in study and in his
visions of the future, not to struggle with the energy of an aspiring
nature against everything that might cling to his steps, or eventually
chance to clog them.

"I have to be a traveller," he said: "a traveller on foot--my bundle
must be light." He felt strangely burthened when he thought of binding
himself to a wife who would have a claim to a large share of his life;
and a blind one too, whom he would feel it wrong to leave. Here in her
native village, where everything wore the simple aspect she had known
from childhood, she was secure from the embarrassments which a
residence in a town must inevitably have produced; and so he persuaded
himself that he should do her a wrong by drawing closer to her. That he
could be causing pain by this self-denial of his, was more than he
could trust himself to believe.

His measures became more decisive. On the last day of his stay, after
he had embraced his parents, and heard that Marlene was in the garden,
he only left a farewell message for her, and with a beating heart he
took the road to the village, and then turned down a path across the
fields, to reach the woods. But