`I shall be ready to return immediately,' she said. `One thing, dear Martin, I am bound to tell you. You entreated me a few minutes since only to answer what you asked me in reference to one theme, but you should and must know (otherwise I could not be at ease) that since that separation of which I was the unhappy occasion, he has never once uttered your name; has never coupled it, or any faint allusion to it, with passion or reproach; and has never abated in his kindness to me.'
`I thank him for that last act,' said Martin, `and for nothing else. Though on consideration I may thank him for his other forbearance also, inasmuch as I neither expect nor desire that he will mention my name again. He may once, perhaps -- to couple it with reproach -- in his will. Let him, if he please! By the time it reaches me, he will be in his grave: a satire on his own anger, God help him!'
`Martin! If you would but sometimes, in some quiet hour; beside the winter fire; in the summer air; when you hear gentle music, or think of Death, or Home, or Childhood; if you would at such a season resolve to think, but once a month, or even once a year, of him, or any one who ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I know!'
`If I believed that to be true, Mary,' he replied, `I would resolve at no such time to bear him in my mind: wishing to spare myself the shame of such a weakness. I was not born to be the toy and puppet of any man, far less his; to whose pleasure and caprice, in return for any good he did me, my whole youth was sacrificed. It became between us two a fair exchange, a barter, and no more: and there is no such balance against me that I need throw in a mawkish forgiveness to poise the scale. He has forbidden all mention of me to you, I know,' he added hastily. `Come! Has he not?'
`That was long ago,' she returned; `immediately after your parting; before you had left the house. He has never done so since.'
`He has never done so since because he has seen no occasion,' said Martin. `but that is of little consequence, one way or other. Let all allusion to him between you and me be interdicted from this time forth. And therefore, love:' he drew her quickly to him, for the time of parting had now come: `in the first letter that you write to me through the Post Office, addressed to New York; and in all the others that you send through Pinch; remember he has no existence, but has become to us as one who is dead. Now, God bless you! This is a strange place for such a meeting and such a parting; but our next meeting shall be in a better, and our next and last parting in a worse.'
`One other question, Martin, I must ask. Have you provided money for this journey?'
`Have I?' cried Martin; it might have been in his pride; it might have been in his desire to set her mind at ease: `Have I provided money? Why, there's a question for an emigrant's wife! How could I move on land or sea without it, love?'
`I mean, enough.'
`Enough! More than enough. Twenty times more than enough. A pocket-full. Mark and I, for all essential ends, are quite as rich as if we had the purse of Fortunatus in our baggage.'
`The half-hour's a-going!' cried Mr. Tapley.
`Good-bye a hundred times!' cried Mary, in a trembling voice.
But how cold the comfort in Good-bye! Mark Tapley knew it perfectly. Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience, perhaps from intuition. It is impossible to say; but however he knew it, his knowledge instinctively suggested to him the wisest course of proceeding that any man could have adopted under the circumstances. He was taken with a violent fit of sneezing, and was obliged to turn his head another way. In doing which, he, in a manner fenced and screened the lovers into a corner by themselves.