"But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public life,
and we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a short
pause, and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me worldly,
grasping, ambitious; how different my fate had been had I known a
home!--known one whom I could love and venerate; known one whose smiles
would have developed the good that was once within me, and the fear of
whose rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil."

"Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have had
that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it away. How
few of your rank really think of home when they marry! how few ask to
venerate as well as to love! and how many, of every rank, when the
home has been really gained, have wilfully lost its shelter,--some in
neglectful weariness, some from a momentary doubt, distrust, caprice,
a wild fancy, a passionate fit, a trifle, a straw, a dream! True, you
women are ever dreamers. Commonsense, common earth, is above or below
your comprehension."

Both now are silent. Audley first roused himself with a quick, writhing
movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half cynically,--"we
two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment. We know both
too well what life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our
misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause before
you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew. Rely on it, you will
either command a higher offer for your prudence to accept; or, if you
needs must sacrifice rank and fortune, you, with your beauty and your
romantic heart, will see one who, at least for a fair holiday season
(if human love allows no more), can repay you for the sacrifice. Frank
Hazeldean never can."

Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to her eyes.

"Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tones of his mellow
voice. "Do you remember that when you first came to England, I told you
that neither wedlock nor love had any lures for me? We grew friends upon
that rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you like some sage of
old, wise because standing apart and aloof from all the affections and
ties that mislead our wisdom. Nothing but real love--how rare it is; has
one human heart in a million ever known it?--nothing but real love can
repay us for the loss of freedom, the cares and fears of poverty, the
cold pity of the world that we