When the land had faded behind him he mechanically
endeavoured to school himself into a stoical frame of mind. His
attempt, backed up by the strong moral staying power that had
enabled him to resist the passionate temptation to which Emmeline,
in her reckless trustfulness, had exposed him, was rewarded by a
certain kind of success, though the murmuring stretch of waters
whereon he gazed day after day too often seemed to be articulating
to him in tones of her well-remembered voice.
He framed on his journey rules of conduct for reducing to mild
proportions the feverish regrets which would occasionally arise and
agitate him, when he indulged in visions of what might have been had
he not hearkened to the whispers of conscience. He fixed his
thoughts for so many hours a day on philosophical passages in the
volumes he had brought with him, allowing himself now and then a few
minutes' thought of Emmeline, with the strict yet reluctant
niggardliness of an ailing epicure proportioning the rank drinks
that cause his malady. The voyage was marked by the usual incidents
of a sailing-passage in those days--a storm, a calm, a man
overboard, a birth, and a funeral--the latter sad event being one in
which he, as the only clergyman on board, officiated, reading the
service ordained for the purpose. The ship duly arrived at Boston
early in the month following, and thence he proceeded to Providence
to seek out a distant relative.
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