Ah! the bell is hushed; but not your heart, Tom,--that speaks
still."

Tom was weeping like a child.

CHAPTER VIII.

NOW when our two travellers resumed their journey, the relationship
between them had undergone a change; nay, you might have said that their
characters were also changed. For Tom found himself pouring out his
turbulent heart to Kenelm, confiding to this philosophical scoffer at
love all the passionate humanities of love,--its hope, its anguish, its
jealousy, its wrath,--the all that links the gentlest of emotions to
tragedy and terror. And Kenelm, listening tenderly, with softened eyes,
uttered not one cynic word,--nay, not one playful jest. He, felt that
the gravity of all he heard was too solemn for mockery, too deep even
for comfort. True love of this sort was a thing he had never known,
never wished to know, never thought he could know, but he sympathized
in it not the less. Strange, indeed, how much we do sympathize, on
the stage, for instance, or in a book, with passions that have never
agitated ourselves! Had Kenelm jested or reasoned or preached, Tom would
have shrunk at once into dreary silence; but Kenelm said nothing, save
now and then, as he rested his arm, brother-like, on the strong man's
shoulder, he murmured, "Poor fellow!" So, then, when Tom had finished
his confessions, he felt wondrously relieved and comforted. He had
cleansed his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed upon the heart.

Was this good result effected by Kenelm's artful diplomacy, or by that
insight into human passions vouchsafed unconsciously to himself, by
gleams or in flashes, to this strange man who surveyed the objects and
pursuits of his fellows with a yearning desire to share them, murmuring
to himself, "I cannot, I do not stand in this world; like a ghost I
glide beside it, and look on "?

Thus the two men continued their way slowly, amid soft pastures and
yellowing cornfields, out at length into the dusty thoroughfares of
the main road. That gained, their talk insensibly changed its tone: it
became more commonplace; and Kenelm permitted himself the license of
those crotchets by which he extracted a sort of quaint pleasantry out of
commonplace itself; so that from time to time Tom was startled into the
mirth of laughter. This big fellow had one very agreeable gift, which
is only granted, I think, to men of genuine character and affectionate
dispositions,--a spontaneous and sweet laugh, manly and frank,