hould
have assured her of the state of my affections, no matter if there were
reasons to suppose that I would never see her again; but her father very
sternly forbade anything of the kind, and I went away crushed.

It was a very hard case, for if I played the part of a bold lover and
tried to see Agnes without regard to the wicked orders of her father,
I should certainly be discovered; and then it would be not only myself,
but the poor girl, who would suffer. So I determined that I would submit
to the Havelot decree. No matter if I never saw her again, never heard
the sound of her voice, it would be better to have her near me, to have
her breathe the same air, cast up her eyes at the same sky, listen to
the same birds, that I breathed, looked at and listened to, than to have
her far away, probably in Kentucky, where I knew she had relatives,
and where the grass was blue and the sky probably green, or at any
rate would appear so to her if in the least degree she felt as I did in
regard to the ties of home and the affinities between the sexes.

I now found myself in a most doleful and even desperate condition of
mind. There was nothing in the world which I could have for which I
cared. Hunting, fishing, and the rambles through woods and fields
that had once been so delightful to me now became tasks which I seldom
undertook. The only occupation in which I felt the slightest interest
was that of sitting in a tower of my house with a telescope, endeavoring
to see my Agnes on some portion of her father's grounds; but, although I
diligently directed my glass at the slightest stretch of lawn or bit
of path which I could discern through openings in the foliage, I never
caught sight of her. I knew, however, by means of daily questions
addressed to my cook, whose daughter was a servant in the Havelot
house, that Agnes was yet at home. For that reason I remained at home.
Otherwise, I should have become a wanderer.

About a month after I had fallen into this most unhappy state an old
friend came to see me. We had been school-fellows, but he differed from
me in almost every respect. He was full of ambition and energy, and,
although he was but a few years older than myself, he had already made
a name in the world. He was a geologist, earnest and enthusiastic in his
studies and his investigations. He told me frankly that the object of
his visit was twofold. In the first place, he wanted to see me, and,
secondly, he wanted to make som