“Nothing more.”

She left the room.  There would be no antagonism between us; but there would be pain—­on one side.  The distance which had kept us apart was shortened, but not annihilated.  What could I expect?  The silent and serene currents which flow from souls like Veronica’s and Ben’s, whose genius is not of the heart, refuse to enter a nature so turbulent as mine.  But my destiny must be changed by such!  It was taken for granted that my own spirit should not rule me.  And with what reward?  Any, but that of sympathy.  But I muttered: 

                  “’I dimly see
  My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
  Conjectures of the features of her child
  Ere it is born.’”

The house trembled in the fury of the storm.  The waves were hoarse with their vain bawling, and the wind shrieked at every crevice of chimney, door, and window.  No answering excitement in me now!  I had grown older.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A few days after, I went to Milford with father, to make some purchases.  I sought a way to speak to him about the future, intending also to go on with various remarks; but it seemed difficult to begin.  Observing him, as he contemplated the road before us, grave and abstracted, I recollected the difference between his age and mother’s, and wondered at my blindness, while I compared the old man of my childhood, who existed for the express purpose of making money for the support and pleasure of his family, and to accommodate all its whims, with the man before me,—­barely forty-eight, without a wrinkle in his firm, ruddy face, and only an occasional white hair, in ambuscade among his fair, curly locks.  My exclusive right over him I felt doubtful about.  I gave my attention to the road also, and remarked that I thought the season was late.

“Yes.  Why didn’t Somers come home with you?”

“I hardly know.  The matter of the marriage was not settled, nor a plan of spending a summer abroad.”

“Will it suit him to vegetate in Surrey?  Veronica will not leave home.”

“He has no ambition.”

“It is a curse to inherit money in this country.  Mr. Somers writes that Ben will have three thousand a year; but that the disposal, at present, is not in his power.”

I explained as well as I could the Pickersgill property.

“I see how it is.  The children are waiting for the principal, and have exacted the income; and their lives have been warped for this reason.  Ben has not begun life yet.  But I like Somers exceedingly.”

“He is the best of them, his mother the worst.”

“Did you have a passage?”

“She attempted.”

“I can give Veronica nothing beyond new clothes or furniture; whatever she likes that way.  To draw money from my business is impossible.  My business fluctuates like quicksilver, and it is enormously extended.  If they should have two thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel so now, if they had it clear of incumbrance.”