One day of expectation, in which he was the most calm and resolute of
us, one anxious day when they sent me to Miss Woolmer, until Harold
came, thankful and hopeful to fetch me, a few more of nursing
accepted with touching gratitude, and he was soon downstairs again, a
hale old man, though nearly seventy, but more than ever bent on his
retreat to La Trappe. It distressed us much. He seemed so much to
enjoy intelligent talk with Miss Woolmer and the Yollands; he so
delighted in books, and took such fresh interest in all, whether
mechanical or moral, that was doing at the Hydriots--of which, by-
the-by, as first inventor, the company had contrived, at Harold's
suggestion, to make him a shareholder to an extent that would cover
all his modest needs, I could not think how he would bear the change.
"My dear young lady," he said to me, when I tried to persuade him out
of writing the first letter, "you forget how much I have of sin upon
me. Can years of negation of faith, or the ruin of four young lives,
and I know not of how many more, be repented of at ease in your
pleasant town, amid the amiable cares you young people are good
enough to lavish on the old man?"
I made some foolish answer about his having meant all for good and
noble purposes, but he shook his head.
"Error, my dear madam, error excusable, perhaps, in one whose country
has been destroyed.
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