impossible. For her such an engagement
would be very bad--very bad indeed; but for you it would be utter
ruin. Indeed, it would be ruin for you both. Unencumbered as you will
be, and with the good connection which you will have, and with your
excellent talents, it will be quite within your reach to win for
yourself a high position. But with you, as with other gentlemen who
have to work their way, marriage must come late in life, unless
you marry an heiress. This I think is thoroughly understood by all
people in our position; and I am sure that it is understood by your
excellent mother, for whom I always had and still have the most
unfeigned respect. As this is so undoubtedly the case, and as I
cannot of course consent that Lady Clara should remain hampered by
an engagement which would in all human probability hang over the ten
best years of her life, I thought it wise that you should not see
each other. I have, however, allowed myself to be overruled; and
now I must only trust to your honour, forbearance, and prudence to
protect my child from what might possibly be the ill effects of her
own affectionate feelings. That she is romantic,--enthusiastic to
a fault I should perhaps rather call it--I need not tell you. She
thinks that your misfortune demands from her a sacrifice of herself;
but you, I know, will feel that, even were such a sacrifice available
to you, it would not become you to accept it. Because you have
fallen, you will not wish to drag her down; more especially as you
can rise again--and she could not."

So spoke the countess, with much worldly wisdom, and with
considerable tact in adjusting her words to the object which she had
in view. Herbert, as he stood before her silent during the period of
her oration, did feel that it would be well for him to give up his
love, and go away in utter solitude of heart to those dingy studies
which Mr. Prendergast was preparing for him. His love, or rather
the assurance of Clara's love, had been his great consolation. But
what right had he, with all the advantages of youth, and health, and
friends, and education, to require consolation? And then from moment
to moment he thought of the woman whom he had left in the cabin, and
confessed that he did not dare to call himself unhappy.

He had listened attentively, although he did thus think of other
eloquence besides that of the countess--of the eloquence of that
silent, solitary, dying woman; but when she had done he hardl