With Mr. Fairlie's leave or without it, I must go.
The consciousness of having now taken the first step on the dreary
journey which was henceforth to separate my life from Miss
Fairlie's seemed to have blunted my sensibility to every
consideration connected with myself. I had done with my poor
man's touchy pride--I had done with all my little artist vanities.
No insolence of Mr. Fairlie's, if he chose to be insolent, could
wound me now.
The servant returned with a message for which I was not
unprepared. Mr. Fairlie regretted that the state of his health,
on that particular morning, was such as to preclude all hope of
his having the pleasure of receiving me. He begged, therefore,
that I would accept his apologies, and kindly communicate what I
had to say in the form of a letter. Similar messages to this had
reached me, at various intervals, during my three months'
residence in the house. Throughout the whole of that period Mr.
Fairlie had been rejoiced to "possess" me, but had never been well
enough to see me for a second time. The servant took every fresh
batch of drawings that I mounted and restored back to his master
with my "respects," and returned empty-handed with Mr. Fairlie's
"kind compliments," "best thanks," and "sincere regrets" that the
state of his health still obliged him to remain a solitary
prisoner in his own room.
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