|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
|
136 person.’ ‘Just so. Grace Poole-you have guessed it. She is, as you say, singular-very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details of to-night’s incident. You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs’ (pointing to the bed): ‘and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:- in two hours the servants will be up.’ ‘Good-night, then, sir,’ said I, departing. He seemed surprised-very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go. ‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘are you quitting me already, and in that way?’ ‘You said I might go, sir.’ ‘But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!- snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.’ He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in both his own. ‘You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different;- I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.’ He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,- but his voice was checked. ‘Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case.’ ‘I knew,’ he continued, you would do me good in some way, at some time;- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not’(again he stopped)- ‘did not’ (he proceeded hastily) ‘strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!’ Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. ‘I am glad I happened to be awake,’ I said: and then I was going. ‘What! you will go?’ ‘I am cold, sir.’ ‘Cold? Yes,- and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!’ But he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient. ‘I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,’ said I. ‘Well, leave me’: he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone. I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and |
