, produced
his present resolution, and would support him in it.
The business which he had to transact with the Earl proved very
brief; and after it was over, he sought Lord Sherbrooke again, with
feelings of real and deep interest in all that concerned him. He
found the young nobleman seated with his feet on the fire-place, and
a light book in his hand, sometimes letting it drop upon his knee,
and falling into a fit of thought, sometimes reading a few lines
attentively, sometimes gazing upon the page, evidently without
attending to its contents.
He suffered Wilton to be in the room several minutes without speaking
to him; and his friend, knowing the eccentricities that occasionally
took possession of him, was about to quit the room and leave him,
when he started up, threw the book into the midst of the fire, and
said, "Where are you going, Wilton? I will walk with you."
They issued forth together into the streets, and entering St. James's
Park, took their way round by the head of the decoy towards the side
of the river. While in the streets they both kept silence; but as
soon as they had passed the ever-moving crowds that swarm in the
thoroughfares of the great metropolis, Wilton began the conversation,
by inquiring eagerly after his friend's wife.
"She is nearly well," replied Lord Sherbrooke, coldly--"out of all
danger, at least. It is I that am sick, Wilton--sick at heart."
"I hope not cold at heart, Sherbrooke," replied Wilton, somewhat
pained by the tone in which the other spoke. "I should think such a
being as I saw with you might well warm you to constancy as well as
love. I hope, Sherbrooke, those feelings I beheld excited in you have
not, in this instance, evaporated as soon as in others."
Lord Sherbrooke turned and gazed in his friend's face for a moment
intently, even sternly, and then replied, "Love her, Wilton? I love
her better than anything in earth or in heaven! It is for her sake I
am sad; and yet she is so noble, that why should I fear to bear what
she will never shrink from."
"Nay, my dear Sherbrooke," replied Wilton. "The very resolution which
I see you have taken to shake yourself free of the trammels of your
debts ought to give you joy and confidence."
"Debts!" said Lord Sherbrooke--"debts! Do you think that it was debts
I had in view when I ordered my horses to be sold, and my carriages
to follow them, and kicked my Italian valet down stairs, and
dismissed my mistresses, and got rid of half-a-dozen other
blood-suckers?--My de