special use, though as yet he was hardly far enough advanced
towards convalescence to avail himself of the luxury. 'Is this Mr.
Manston's doing?' he inquired.

She could dally with her perplexity, evade it, trust to time for
guidance, no longer. The matter had come to a crisis: she must once and
for all choose between the dictates of her understanding and those of
her heart. She longed, till her soul seemed nigh to bursting, for her
lost mother's return to earth, but for one minute, that she might have
tender counsel to guide her through this, her great difficulty.

As for her heart, she half fancied that it was not Edward's to quite
the extent that it once had been; she thought him cruel in conducting
himself towards her as he did at Budmouth, cruel afterwards in making so
light of her. She knew he had stifled his love for her--was utterly
lost to her. But for all that she could not help indulging in a woman's
pleasure of recreating defunct agonies, and lacerating herself with them
now and then.

'If I were rich,' she thought, 'I would give way to the luxury of being
morbidly faithful to him for ever without his knowledge.'

But she considered; in the first place she was a homeless dependent;
and what did practical wisdom tell her to do under such desperate
circumstances? To provide herself with some place of refuge from
poverty, and with means to aid her brother Owen. This was to be Mr.
Manston's wife.

She did not love him.

But what was love without a home? Misery. What was a home without love?
Alas, not much; but still a kind of home.

'Yes,' she thought, 'I am urged by my common sense to marry Mr.
Manston.'

Did anything nobler in her say so too?

With the death (to her) of Edward her heart's occupation was gone. Was
it necessary or even right for her to tend it and take care of it as she
used to in the old time, when it was still a capable minister?

By a slight sacrifice here she could give happiness to at least two
hearts whose emotional activities were still unwounded. She would do
good to two men whose lives were far more important than hers.

'Yes,' she said again, 'even Christianity urges me to marry Mr.
Manston.'

Directly Cytherea had persuaded herself that a kind of heroic
self-abnegation had to do with the matter, she became much more content
in the consideration of it. A wilful indifference to the future was what
really prevailed in her, ill and worn out, as she was, by the perpetual
ha