She had just escaped, but the siege would be renewed. How was she
going to meet it?

Why shouldn't she marry the Squire? She was poor, but she had
qualities much more valuable to the Squire than money. She could
rescue him from debt, put his estate on a paying footing, restore
Mannering, rebuild the village, and all the time keep him happy by
her sympathy with and understanding of his classical studies and
hobbies.

And thereby she would be doing not only a private but a public
service. The Mannering estate and its owner had been an offence to
the patriotism of a whole neighbourhood. Elizabeth could and would
put an end to that. She had already done much to modify it. In her
Greek scholarship, and her ready wits, she possessed all the spells
that were wanted for the taming of the Squire.

As to the Squire himself? She examined the matter dispassionately.
He was fifty-two--sound in wind and limb--a gentleman in spite of
all his oddities and tempers--and one of the best Greek scholars of
his day. She could make her own terms. 'I would take his name--give
him my time, my brains, my friendship--in time, no doubt, my
affection.' He would not ask for more. The modern woman, no longer
young, an intellectual, with a man's work to do, can make of
marriage what she pleases. The possibilities of the relations
between men and women in the future are many, and the psychology of
them unexplored. Elizabeth was beginning to think her own case out,
when, suddenly, she felt the tears running over her cheeks.

She was back in past days. Mannering had vanished. Oh--for
love!--for youth!--for the broken faith and the wounded trust!--for
the first fresh wine of life that, once dashed from the lips, the
gods offer no more! She found herself sobbing helplessly, not for
her actual lost lover, who had passed out of her life, but for those
beautiful ghosts at whose skirts she seemed to be clutching--youth
itself, love itself.

Had she done with them for good and all? That was what marrying the
Squire meant.

A business marriage--on her side, for an income, a home, a career;
on his, for a companion, a secretary, an agent. Well, she said to
herself as she calmed down, that she could face; but supposing,
after all, that the Squire was putting more into the scales than
she? A sudden fear grew strong in her--fear lest this man should
have more heart, more romance in him than she had imagined
possible--that while she was thinking of a business