er into a groove in which
her days would be wretched to her? Had she come to me and wanted
bread, and have seen before her all the misery of poverty, the
stone-coldness of a governess's life; had she been left to earn her
bread without any one to love her, it might then have been different.
She would have looked out into another world, and have seen another
prospect. A comfortable home with kindness, and her needs supplied,
would have sufficed. She would then have thought herself happy in
becoming my wife. There would then have been no cruelty. But she
had seen you, and though it was but a dream, she thought that she
could endure to wait. Better that than surrender all the delight of
loving. So she told me that she would think of you. Poor dear! I can
understand now the struggle which she intended to make. Then in the
very nick of time, in the absolute moment of the day--so that you
might have everything and I nothing--you came. You came, and were
allowed to see her, and told her all your story. You filled her heart
full with joy, but only to be crushed when she thought that the fatal
promise had been given to me. I saw it all, I knew it. I thought to
myself for a few hours that it might be so. But it cannot be so."

"Oh, Mr Whittlestaff!"

"It cannot be so," he said, with a firm determined voice, as though
asserting a fact which admitted no doubt.

"Mr Whittlestaff, what am I to say to you?"

"You! What are you to say? Nothing. What should you say? Why should
you speak? It is not for love of you that I would do this thing; nor
yet altogether from love of her. Not that I would not do much for her
sake. I almost think that I would do it entirely for her sake, if
there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which
belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a
coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and
the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I
ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some
of her thoughts must still be given to you. She is yours, Mr Gordon;
but I doubt much whether you care for the possession."

"Not care for her! Up to the moment when I received your note, I was
about to start again for South Africa. South Africa is no place for
her,--nor for me either, with such a wife. Mr Whittlestaff, will you
not allow me to say one word to you in friendship?"

"Not a word."

"How am I to come and take