Short Fiction · Mathilda 9 (2/13) (2/2)

How often have I wept over that letter which until I was sixteen was the only relic I had to remind me of my parents. “Pardon me,” it said, “for the uneasiness I have unavoidably given you: but while in that unhappy island, where everything breathes her spirit whom I have lost forever, a spell held me. It is broken: I have quitted England for many years, perhaps forever. But to convince you that selfish feeling does not entirely engross me I shall remain in this town until you have made by letter every arrangement that you judge necessary. When I leave this place do not expect to hear from me: I must break all ties that at present exist. I shall become a wanderer, a miserable outcast⁠—alone! alone!”⁠—In another part of the letter he mentioned me⁠—“As for that unhappy little being whom I could not see, and hardly dare mention, I leave her under your protection. Take care of her and cherish her: one day I may claim her at your hands; but futurity is dark, make the present happy to her.”

My father remained three months at Hamburg; when he quitted it he changed his name, my aunt could never discover that which he adopted and only by faint hints, could conjecture that he had taken the road of Germany and Hungary to Turkey.18

Thus this towering spirit who had excited interest and high expectation in all who knew and could value him became at once, as it were, extinct. He existed from this moment for himself only. His friends remembered him as a brilliant vision which would never again return to them. The memory of what he had been faded away as years passed; and he who before had been as a part of themselves and of their hopes was now no longer counted among the living.