Der Praefekt

be rid of his.
     
    “Give it up, papa,” she said again, jumping from his knees and
    standing on her feet before him, looking boldly into his face; “give
    it up, papa.”
     
    Oh, it was sad to see how that momentary gleam of joy passed away;
    how the look of hope was dispersed from that sorrowful face, as the
    remembrance of the archdeacon came back upon our poor warden, and he
    reflected that he could not stir from his now hated post.  He was as
    a man bound with iron, fettered with adamant: he was in no respect a
    free agent; he had no choice.  “Give it up!”  Oh if he only could:
    what an easy way that were out of all his troubles!
     
    “Papa, don’t doubt about it,” she continued, thinking that his
    hesitation arose from his unwillingness to abandon so comfortable
    a home; “is it on my account that you would stay here?  Do you
    think that I cannot be happy without a pony-carriage and a fine
    drawing-room?  Papa, I never can be happy here, as long as there is a
    question as to your honour in staying here; but I could be gay as the
    day is long in the smallest tiny little cottage, if I could see you
    come in and go out with a light heart. Oh! papa, your face tells so
    much; though you won’t speak to me with your voice, I know how it is
    with you every time I look at you.”
     
    How he pressed her to his heart again with almost a spasmodic
    pressure!  How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old
    eyes!  How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft sweet
    names which now came new to his lips!  How he chid himself for ever
    having been unhappy with such a treasure in his house, such a jewel on
    his bosom, with so sweet a flower in the choice garden of his heart!
    And then the floodgates of his tongue were loosed, and, at length,
    with unsparing detail of circumstances, he told her all that he
    wished, and all that he could not do.  He repeated those arguments
    of the archdeacon, not agreeing in their truth, but explaining his
    inability to escape from them;—how it had been declared to him that
    he was bound to remain where he was by the interests of his order,
    by gratitude to the bishop, by the wishes of his friends, by a sense
    of duty, which, though he could not understand it, he was fain to
    acknowledge.  He told her how he had been accused of cowardice, and
    though he was not a man to make much of such a charge before the
    world, now in the full candour of his heart he explained to her that
    such an accusation was grievous to him; that he did think it would be
    unmanly to desert his post, merely to escape his present sufferings,
    and that, therefore, he must bear as best he might the misery which
    was prepared for him.
     
    And did she find these details tedious?  Oh, no; she encouraged him
    to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he laid bare the inmost
    corners of his heart to her.  They spoke together of the archdeacon,
    as two children might of a stern, unpopular, but still respected
    schoolmaster, and of the bishop as a parent kind as kind could be, but
    powerless against an omnipotent pedagogue.
     
    And then when they had discussed all this, when the father had told
    all to the child, she could not be less confiding than he had been;
    and as John Bold’s name was mentioned between them, she owned how well
    she had learned to love him,—“had loved him once,” she said, “but she
    would not, could not do so now—no, even had her troth been plighted
    to him, she would have taken it back again;—had she sworn to love
    him as his wife, she would have discarded him, and not felt herself
    forsworn, when he proved himself the enemy of her father.”
     
    But the warden declared that Bold was no enemy of his, and encouraged
    her love; and gently rebuked, as he kissed her, the stern resolve she
    had made to cast him off; and then he spoke to her of happier days
    when their trials would all be over; and declared that her young heart
    should not be torn asunder to please either priest or prelate, dean or
    archdeacon.  No, not if all Oxford were to convocate together, and
    agree as to the necessity of the sacrifice.
     
    And so they greatly comforted each other;—and in what sorrow will not
    such mutual confidence give consolation!—and with a last expression
    of tender love they parted, and went comparatively happy to their
    Zimmer.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter XI
     
    IPHIGENIA
     
     
    When Eleanor laid her head on her pillow that night, her mind