to be dearer to him than the lovely mrs and put that neatly prepared marriage with her out of the question it was among the usual of feeling that sir who had given his to against too much tenderness in his relations with the bride should now feel rather irritated against him by the suspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done of course all this on sir s part was eminently premature only a fortnight or so after s death but it is the trick of thinking to bo either premature or however he sent the note to s chambers and it found him there � � � � book � fruit chapter oh pore faith white handed hope thou with wings i did not obey s new summons some agitation not his vanity but bis keen made him susceptible to the danger that s heart might fed demands on him than he would be able to and it was no longer a matter of argument with him but of penetrating consciousness that s soul clung to his with a passionate need we do not the existence of the anger or the scorn that through us in a voice wc simply fed it and it admits of no felt this woman s destiny hanging on his over a precipice of despair any one knows liim can not wonder at bis inward confession that if all this had happened little more a year ago he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her the impetuous impulse which would have moved him have been to save her from sorrow to shelter her life for from the dangers of loneliness and carry out to the last the rescue he had begun in that of the but now love and duty had thrown other bonds around him and that impulse could no longer his life still it was present in him as a compassionate yearning a painful quivering at the very imagination of having and again to meet the appeal of her eyes and words the very strength of the bond the certainty of the resolve that kept him asunder from her made him gaze at her lot apart with the more aching pity he awaited her coming in the back drawing room � part of that white and crimson space where they had sat together at the musical party where had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not her and her appeal had seemed to into the cry � per non bat tho melody had come from s dear voice walked about this room which ho had for years known by heart with a strange sense of in own life tho familiar objects around him from lady ma linger s gently smiling portrait to the also human and faces of the lions on tho of the chimney piece seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence which he was in memory only not in reality so deep and had been tlie impressions he had lately experienced so new were tho conditions under which he found himself in the house ho had been accustomed to think of as a standing with his hat in his hand awaiting the entrance of a young creature life had also been a � a tragic toward a r result in which ho felt with that his own action was still bound up but was come in looking changed not only by her mourning dress but by a more satisfied of expression than he had seen in her face at her satisfaction was that was there but there was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands each was full of � full of anxious ho said it was good of you to come let us sit down immediately herself in the nearest chair he placed himself opposite to her i asked you to come because i want you to tell me what i ought to do she began at once don t be afraid of telling me what you think is right because it seems hard i have made up my mind to do it i was afraid once of being poor i could not bear to think of being under other people and that was why i did something � why i married i have borne worse things now i think i could bear to be poor if you think i ought do you know about my husband s will f yes sir told me said already tho question she had to ask ought i to take any thing ho has left me t i will tell you what i been thinking said with a more nervous eagerness perhaps you may not quite know that i n p ib vm m i i i m m book � i really did think a good deal about my mother when i married i was but i did love her and about her and what comforted mo moat at first when i was miserable was her being better off i had married the thing that would be hardest to me now would bo to see her in poverty again and i have been thinking that if i took enough to provide for her and no more � nothing for myself � it would not be wrong for i was very to my mother � and ho took mo from and ho � nd if sim had broke off she had been preparing herself for this interview by thinking of hardly any thing else than this question of right toward her mother but tho question had carried with it thoughts and reasons which it impossible for her to utter and these perilous between her words making her speech more and more agitated and tremulous she looked down helplessly at her hands now of all rings except her wedding ring do not hurt yourself 