Only she said, half to herself,-- "Well, better so.

I have no doubt you will be very useful among them." "Confound the icicle!" thought Tom.

"I really believe that she wants to get rid of me." And he would have withdrawn his hand in a pet: but she held it still.
Quaint it was; those two strong natures, each loving the other better than anything else on earth, and yet parted by the thinnest pane of ice, which a single look would have melted.

She longing to follow that man over the wide world, slave for him, die for him; he longing for the least excuse for making a fool of himself, and crying, "Take me, as I take you, without a penny, for better, for worse!" If their eyes had but met! But they did not meet; and the pane of ice kept them asunder as surely as a wall of iron.
Was it that Tom was piqued at her seeming coldness: or did he expect, before he made any advances, that she should show that she wished at least for his respect, by saying something to clear up the ugly question which lay between them?
Or was he, as I suspect, so ready to melt, and make a fool of himself, that he must needs harden his own heart by help of the devil himself?
And yet there are excuses for him.

It would have been a sore trial to any man's temper to quit Aberalva in the belief that he left fifteen hundred pounds behind him.