Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

30. CHAPTER XXX: ANOTHER LOVE SCENE (continued)

'I hope we are not to part as enemies?' said he.

'There shall be no enmity on my part,' said Eleanor; 'I endeavour to avoid all enmities. It would be a hollow pretence were I to say that there can be a true friendship between us after what has just past. People cannot make their friends of those whom they despise.'

'And am I despised?'

'I must have been so before you could have spoken of me as you did. And I was deceived, cruelly deceived. I believed that you thought well of me; I believed that you esteemed me.'

'Thought of you well and esteemed you!' said he. 'In justifying myself before you, I must use stronger words than those.' He paused for a moment, and Eleanor's heart beat with painful violence within her bosom as she waited for him to go on. 'I have esteemed, do esteem you, as I never esteemed any woman. Think well of you! I never thought to think so well, so much of any human creature. Speak calumny of you! Insult you! Wilfully injure you! I wish it were my privilege to shield you from calumny, insult, and injury. Calumny! Ah, me. 'Twere almost better that it were so. Better than to worship with a sinful worship; sinful and vain also.' And then he walked along beside her, with his hands clasped behind his back, looking down on the grass beneath his feet, and utterly at a loss to express his meaning. And Eleanor walked beside him determined at least to give him no assistance.

'Ah, me!' he uttered at last, speaking rather to himself than to her. 'Ah, me! These Plumstead walks were pleasant enough, if one could have but heart's ease; but without that, the dull dead stones of Oxford were far preferable; and St Ewold's too; Mrs Bold, I am beginning to think that I mistook myself when I came hither. A Romish priest now would have escaped all this. Of, Father of heaven! How good for us would it be, if thou couldest vouchsafe to us a certain rule.'

'And have we not got a certain rule, Mr Arabin?'