keep our resolutions but the wrong remains the same no it does not remain the same said we have proved that it was impossible to keep our resolutions we have proved that the feeling which draws us towards each other is too strong to be overcome that natural law every other we can t help what it with it is not so � i m quite sure that is wrong i have tried to think it again and again but i see if we judged in that way there would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty � we should justify breaking the most sacred ties that can ever be formed on earth if the past is not to bind us where can duty lie we should have no law but the inclination of the moment but there are ties � i v e lay resolution the mill on the said starting up and walking about again what is outward would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as constancy without love did not answer immediately she was an inward as well as an contest at last she said with a passionate assertion of her conviction as much against herself as against him � that seems right � at first but when i look further i m sure it is not right and constancy mean something else besides doing what is easiest and to ourselves they mean whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in us � whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made dependent on us if we � if i had been better nobler those claims would have been so strongly present with me � i should have felt them pressing on my heart so continually just as they do now in the moments when my conscience is awake � that the opposite feeling would never have grown in me as it has done it would have been at once � i should have prayed for help so earnestly � i should have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger i feel no excuse for myself � none i should never have failed towards and philip as i have done if i had not been weak selfish and hard � able to think of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all temptation oh what is feeling now she believed in me � she loved me � she was so good to me think of her s voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words i think of her said stamping as if with pain i can think of nothing but you you demand of a man what is impossible i felt that once but i can t go back to it now and where is the use of your thinking of it except to torture me you can t save them from now you can only tear yourself firom me and make my life worthless to me and even if we could go back and both fulfil our engagements � if that were possible now � it would be hateful � horrible to think of your ever being philip s wife � of your ever being the wife of a man you didn t love we have both been rescued from a mistake a deep flush came over s face and she couldn t speak saw this he sat down again taking her band in his and looking at her with passionate entreaty i dearest i if you love me you are m who can have so great a claim on you as i have m up in your love there is nothing in the pf thb mill on ths our right to each other it is the first time we have either of us loved with our whole heart and soul was still silent for a little while � looking down was in a flutter of new hope he was going to triumph but she raised her eyes and met his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of regret � not with yielding no � not with my whole heart and soul she said with timid resolution i have never consented to it with my whole mind there are memories and affections and longing after perfect goodness that have such a strong hold on me they would never quit me for long they would come back and be pain to me � repentance i couldn t live in peace if i put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and god i have caused sorrow already � i know � i feel it but i have never deliberately consented to it i have never said they shall suffer that i may have joy it has never been my will to marry you if you were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you you would not have my whole soul if could wake back again into the time before yesterday i would choose to be true to my calmer affections and live without the joy of love her hand and rising impatiently walked up and down the room in suppressed rage good god i he burst out at last what a miserable thing a woman s love is to a man s i could crimes for you � and you can balance and choose in that way but you t love me if you had a of the feeling for me that i have for you it would be impossible for you to think for a moment of sacrificing me but it nothing with you that you are me of my ufe s happiness pressed her fingers together almost as she held them clasped on her lap a great terror was upon her as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning and then 