er best, but from whom
she would be henceforth best separated, if what he had been saying was
his deliberate belief and judgment.--Enderby declaring that it was so,
and that it was his intention to release Margaret from her engagement,
gently and carefully, without useless explanation and without reproach,
there was nothing more to be said or done. Hope prophesied, in parting,
that, of all the days of Enderby's life, this was perhaps that of which
he would one day most heartily repent; and while he spoke, he felt that
this same day was the one which he might himself find the most difficult
to endure. He left Enderby still pacing the meadow, and walked
homewards with a heart weighed down with grief--a grief which yet he
would fain have increased to any degree of intensity by taking
Margaret's upon himself.

Margaret was at the breakfast-table with her sister when he entered.
Her eyes were swollen, but her manner was gentle and composed. She
looked up at Edward, when he appeared, with an expression of timid
expectation in her face, which went to his soul. A few words passed--a
very few, and then no more was said.

"Yes; I have seen him. He is very wretched. He will not come, but we
shall hear something, I have no doubt. A strange persuasion which I
cannot remove, of a prior attachment--of a want of frankness and
confidence. He will explain himself presently. But his persuasion is
irremoveable."

Hester had much to say of him out of her throbbing heart; but she looked
at Margaret, and restrained herself. What must there be in _that_
heart? To utter one word would be irreverent. The breakfast passed in
an almost unbroken silence.

It had not been long over when the expected letter came. Hope never saw
it; but there was no need: he perfectly anticipated its contents, while
to her for whom they were written they were incomprehensible.

"I spare you and myself the misery of an interview. It must be
agonising to you, and there would be dishonour as well as pain to me,
in witnessing that agony. If, as I fully believe, you have been
hitherto blind to the injustice of your connecting yourself with me,
from a sense of duty and expediency, when you had not a first genuine
love to give, I think you will see it now; and I pity your suffering
in the discovery. There is only one point on which I wish or intend
to hang any reproach. Why did you not, when I had become entitled to
your confidence, l