第44章 TO THE SAME(In continuation)(5)

I complained to her mother a day or two after,saying I thought it so unlike Sarah's usual propriety of behaviour,that she must mean it as a mark of disrespect.Mrs.L----said,"La!Sir,you're always fancying things.Why,she was dressing to go out,and she was only going to get the little image you're both so fond of mended;and it's to be done this evening.She has been to two or three places to see about it,before she could get anyone to undertake it."My heart,my poor fond heart,almost melted within me at this news.I answered,"Ah!Madam,that's always the way with the dear creature.I am finding fault with her and thinking the hardest things of her;and at that very time she's doing something to shew the most delicate attention,and that she has no greater satisfaction than in gratifying my wishes!"On this we had some farther talk,and I took nearly the whole of the lodgings at a hundred guineas a year,that (as I said)she might have a little leisure to sit at her needle of an evening,or to read if she chose,or to walk out when it was fine.She was not in good health,and it would do her good to be less confined.I would be the drudge and she should no longer be the slave.I asked nothing in return.To see her happy,to make her so,was to be so myself.--This was agreed to.I went over to Blackheath that evening,delighted as I could be after all I had suffered,and lay the whole of the next morning on the heath under the open sky,dreaming of my earthly Goddess.This was Sunday.That evening I returned,for I could hardly bear to be for a moment out of the house where she was,and the next morning she tapped at the door--it was opened--it was she--she hesitated and then came forward:she had got the little image in her hand,I took it,and blest her from my heart.She said "They had been obliged to put some new pieces to it."I said "I didn't care how it was done,so that I had it restored to me safe,and by her."I thanked her and begged to shake hands with her.She did so,and as I held the only hand in the world that I never wished to let go,I looked up in her face,and said "Have pity on me,have pity on me,and save me if you can!"Not a word of answer,but she looked full in my eyes,as much as to say,"Well,I'll think of it;and if I can,I will save you!"We talked about the expense of repairing the figure."Was the man waiting?"--"No,she had fetched it on Saturday evening."I said I'd give her the money in the course of the day,and then shook hands with her again in token of reconciliation;and she went waving out of the room,but at the door turned round and looked full at me,as she did the first time she beguiled me of my heart.This was the last.--All that day I longed to go down stairs to ask her and her mother to set out with me for Scotland on Wednesday,and on Saturday I would make her my wife.Something withheld me.In the evening,however,I could not rest without seeing her,and I said to her younger sister,"Betsey,if Sarah will come up now,I'll pay her what she laid out for me the other day."--"My sister's gone out,Sir,"was the answer.What again!thought I,That's somewhat sudden.I told P----her sitting in the window-seat of the front parlour boded me no good.It was not in her old character.