The long-looked-for letters came after a weary interval of expectation,
the more trying to Ermine because the weather had been so bitter that
Colin could not shake off his cold, nor venture beyond his own fireside,
where Rose daily visited him, and brought home accounts that did not
cheer her aunt.
Edward wrote shortly to his sister, as if almost annoyed at the shower
of letters that had by every post begun to recall his attention from
some new invention on the means of assaying metals:-"I am sorry you have stirred up Keith to the renewal of this painful
subject. You know I considered that page in my life as closed for ever,
and I see nothing that would compensate for what it costs me even to
think of it. To redeem my name before the world would be of no avail
to me now, for all my English habits are broken, and all that made life
valuable to me is gone. If Long and Beauchamp could reject my solemn
affirmation three years ago, what would a retractation slowly wrung from
them be worth to me now? It might once have been, but that is all over
now. Even the desire to take care of you would no longer actuate me
since you have Keith again; and in a few years I hope to make my child
independent in money matters--independent of your love and care you
would not wish her to be. Forget the troubles of your life, Ermine, and
be happy with your faithful Keith, without further efforts on behalf of
one whom they only harass and grieve."
Ermine shed some bitter tears over this letter, the more sorrowful
because the refusal was a shock to her own reliance on his honour, and
she felt like a traitress to his cause. And Colin would give him up
after this ungrateful indifference, if nothing worse. Surely it betrayed
a consciousness that the whole of his conduct would not bear inquiry,
and she thought of the representations that she had so indignantly
rejected, that the accounts, even without the last fatal demand, were
in a state that it required an excess of charity to ascribe to mere
carelessness on the part of the principal.
She was glad that Alison was absent, and Rose in the garden. She laid
her head on her little table, and drew long sobs of keen suffering,
the reaction from the enjoyment and hope of the last few months. And
so little knew she what she ought to ask, that she could only strive to
say, "Thy will be done."
"Ermine! my Ermine, this is not a thing to be so much taken to heart.
This foolish philosopher has not even read his letters. I never saw any
one more consistently like himself."