the part he had had in preventing our union, by omitting to
help us, if not by actually plotting against us. I exonerated
him from that charge now, and deeply lamented my former
ungenerous suspicions; but he had wronged us, still--I hoped,
I trusted that he had. He had not attempted to check the
course of our love by actually damming up the streams in
their passage, but he had passively watched the two currents
wandering through life's arid wilderness, declining to clear
away the obstructions that divided them, and secretly hoping
that both would lose themselves in the sand before they could
be joined in one. And meantime he had been quietly proceed-
ing with his own affairs; perhaps, his heart and head had been
so full of his fair lady that he had had but little thought to spare
for others. Doubtless he had made his first acquaintance
with her--his first intimate acquaintance at least--during his
three months' sojourn at F-----, for I now recollected that
he had once casually let fall an intimation that his aunt and
sister had a young friend staying with them at the time, and
this accounted for at least one-half his silence about all
transactions there. Now, too, I saw a reason for many little
things that had slightly puzzled me before; among the
the rest, for sundry departures from Woodford, and absences
more or less prolonged, for which he never satisfactorily
accounted, and concerning which he hated to be questioned
on his return. Well might the servant say his master was
'very close.' But why this strange reserve to me? Partly,
from that remarkable idiosyncrasy to which I have before
alluded; partly, perhaps, from tenderness to my feelings, or
fear to disturb my philosophy by touching upon the infectious
theme of love.

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