“Now, are these poor folks—­whose creed must have been any thing but orthodox, by all accounts—­all in eternal torments, I wonder, or only waiting to be so, for a few hundreds of years longer?  Such was my mother’s friend, Joanna’s, comfortable creed, and it is shared, as I understand, by all the most excellent people.  How much better (if so) would it have been for them to have been born and cradled on this rock as sea-gulls!  Gad, to dwell here and fight for a king about whose very existence posterity is to be in doubt in this world, and then to go to the devil!  What a nightmare view of life it seems!  If, an hour ago or so, things had turned out otherwise with me, I should have solved the problem for myself.  I almost wish I had.  And yet it was not so when I was clinging tooth and nail to the cliff yonder; and these folks would not have died if they could have helped it, neither.  There’s something ugly in black Death that disinclines man to woo her.  This wind bites to the marrow, and I’ll go.  I’ve seen Gethin now, and there’s an end.”  He turned, and walked as slowly as the blast would let him toward the gate.  “And yet, if it was warmer, and summer-time,” continued he, “I should like to sketch these things, or some of them, especially if Harry were with me.”  He came out, and locked the door, and once more stood in the shelter of it, with the key in his hand.  “She’ll be glad I went back for this, and know that it was done for her sake.  If she had but money, now—­this girl—­and was a lady, and all that!  Or if I could choose whom I would!” He began to descend slowly, step by step; the furious gale forgotten; his late escape from death unremembered; one thought alone monopolizing his mind—­the thought that monopolizes all men’s minds (or nearly all) at his age.  It was here that his hat had blown off, and her soft curls had played about his face; it was there that he had first clasped her waist, and had not been rebuked.  Then he fell to thinking of all that had happened between them during the few hours that were already an epoch in his life.  Why had she looked so frightened at first seeing him?  Had he seemed to come upon her as her “fate,” as some girls say?  He would ask her that some day—­perhaps up yonder amidst the ruins.  He had not missed the look of annoyance which she wore when Solomon had spoken to him so roughly, nor failed to couple it with the expressions she had before made use of with reference to Coe the elder, and the gratitude with which her father regarded his memory.  This Solomon might be a suitor who was backed by the old man, but certainly not encouraged by Harry.  Was she already engaged to him, tacitly or otherwise?  It was impossible, being what she was, that she should not have been wooed by somebody.

Richard Yorke was not one of those exacting characters who demand that the object of their affections should never have attracted those of another; he was even reasonable enough to have forgiven her (if necessary) for having returned them, in ignorance of the existence of a more worthy admirer in himself.  There are many more varieties of Love than even the poets have classified; and perhaps it is in despair of dealing with this Proteus that we elders so often ignore him in our calculations.