-"mother, you need not look so wretched. I wouldn't
harm Edwin--would not take from him his happiness; but to live in sight
of it day after day, hour after hour--I can't do it! Do not ask me--let
me get away."

"But where?"

"Anywhere, as I said; only let me go far away from them, where no
possible news of them can reach me. In some place, oh, mother darling!
where I can trouble no one and make no one miserable."

The mother feebly shook her head. As if such a spot could be found on
earth, while SHE lived.

But she saw that Guy was right. To expect him to remain at home was
cruelty. As he had said, he could not bear it--few could. Few even
among women--of men much fewer. One great renunciation is possible,
sometimes easy, as death may be; but to "die daily?" In youth, too,
with all the passions vehement, the self-knowledge and self-control
small? No; Nature herself, in that universal desire to escape, which
comes with such a trial, hints at the unnaturalness of the ordeal; in
which, soon or late, the weak become paralysed or callous; the
strong--God help them!--are apt to turn wicked.

Guy's instinct of flight was, his mother felt, wisest, safest, best.

"My boy, you shall have your desire; you shall go."

I had not expected it of her--at least, not so immediately. I had
thought, bound up in him as she was, accustomed to his daily sight, his
daily fondness--for he was more with her, and "petted" her more than
any other of the children--I had thought to have seen some reluctance,
some grieved entreaty--but no! Not even when, gaining her consent, the
boy looked up as if her allowing him to quit her was the greatest
kindness she had ever in his life bestowed.

"And when shall I go?"

"Whenever you choose."

"To-day; perhaps I might get away to-day?"

"You can, if you wish, my dear boy."

But no sooner had she said it, than the full force and meaning of the
renunciation seemed to burst upon her. Her fingers, which had been
smoothing Guy's hand as it lay on her lap, tightly closed round it;
with the other hand she put back his hair, gazing--gazing, as if it
were impossible to part with him.

"Guy--oh, Guy, my heart is breaking! Promise that you will try to be
yourself again--that you will never be anything other than my own good
boy, if I agree to let you go?" What he answered, or what further
passed between them, was not for me either to hear or to know. I left
the room immediately.

When,