'
'No, my dear Edward,' said Talbot, taking him kindly by the hand, 'you
are in no respect to blame; and if I concealed this domestic distress for
two days, it was lest your sensibility should view it in that light. You
could not think of me, hardly knew of my existence, when I left England
in quest of you. It is a responsibility, Heaven knows, sufficiently heavy
for mortality, that we must answer for the foreseen and direct result of
our actions; for their indirect and consequential operation the great and
good Being, who alone can foresee the dependence of human events on each
other, hath not pronounced his frail creatures liable.'
'But that you should have left Lady Emily,' said Waverley, with much
emotion, 'in the situation of all others the most interesting to a
husband, to seek a--'
'I only did my duty,' answered Colonel Talbot, calmly, 'and I do not,
ought not, to regret it. If the path of gratitude and honour were always
smooth and easy, there would be little merit in following it; but it
moves often in contradiction to our interest and passions, and sometimes
to our better affections. These are the trials of life, and this, though
not the least bitter' (the tears came unbidden to his eyes), 'is not the
first which it has been my fate to encounter.
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