I have seen your nobler
aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have
I not?’
‘What then?’ he retorted.
‘Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards
you.’
She shook her head.
‘Am I?’
‘Our contract is an old one. It
was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we
could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You arechanged.
When it was made, you were another man.’
‘I was a boy,’ he said
impatiently.
‘Your own feeling tells you that
you were not what you are,’ she returned. ‘I am. That which promised
happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now
that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It
is enough that I havethought of it, and can release you.’
‘Have I ever sought
release?’
‘In words. No. Never.’
‘In what, then?’
‘In a changed nature; in an
altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never
been between us,’ said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon
him; ‘tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!’
He seemed to yield to the justice of
this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, ‘You
think not.’
‘I would gladly think otherwise if
I could,’ she answered, ‘Heaven knows! When Ihave learned a
Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free
today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless
girl — you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain:
or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding
principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely
follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once
were.’
He was about to speak;
but with her head turned from him, she resumed.
‘You may — the memory of
what is past half makes me hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very
brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable
dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you
have chosen!’
She left him; and they parted.
‘Spirit!’ said Scrooge,
‘show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture
me?’
‘One shadow more!’ exclaimed
the Ghost.
‘No more!’ cried Scrooge.
‘No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!’
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in
both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.
They were in another scene and place: a
room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a
beautiful young girl, so like the last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until
he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise
in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than
Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd
in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond
belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon
beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most
ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have
been so rude, no, no! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed
that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I
wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to
measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have
done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and
never come straight again.