ut my affair is different from all the others. There is
something in it, something indefinable and precious, which makes it
different.'

She said: 'Can one help falling in love? Can one be blamed for that?'

For John she had little compassion, and the gay and feverish existence
of New York spread out invitingly before her in a vision full of piquant
contrasts with the death-in-life of the Five Towns! But her beloved
girls! They were an insuperable barrier. She could not leave them; she
could not forfeit the right to look them in the eyes without
embarrassment ... And then the next moment--somehow, she did not know
how--the difficulty of the girls was arranged. And she had departed. She
had left the Five Towns for ever. And she was in the train, in the
hotel, on the steamer; she saw every detail of the escape. Oh! The
rapture! The tremors! The long sigh! The surrender! The intense living!
Surely no price could be too great....

No! Common sense, the acquirement of forty years, supervened, and
informed her wild heart, with all the cold arrogance of sagacity, that
these imaginings were vain. She felt that she must write a brief and
firm letter to Arthur and tell him to desist. She saw with extraordinary
clearness that this course was inevitable. And lest her resolution might
slacken, she turned instantly towards home and began to hurry. The dog
glanced up questioningly, and hurried too.

'Why!' she reflected. 'People would say: "And her husband's aunt
scarcely cold in her grave!"' She laughed scornfully.

A carriage overtook her. It was Mrs. Dain's, coming from the direction
of Oldcastle.

'Good afternoon to you,' Mrs. Dain shouted, without stopping, and then,
when she caught sight of Bran: 'Bless us! The dog hasn't brukken his leg
after all!'

'Broken his leg!' Leonora repeated, astonished. The carriage was now in
front of her.

'Our Polly come in this morning and sat hersen down on a chair and told
us as your dog had brukken his leg. What tales one hears!' Mrs. Dain had
to twist her stout neck dangerously in order to finish the sentence.

'I should think so!' was Leonora's private comment, her gaze fixed on
the scarlet of Mrs. Dain's nodding bonnet.

In the little room off the dining-room Leonora dipped pen in ink to
write to Arthur. She wrote the date, and she wrote the word 'Dear.' And
she could not proceed. She knew that she could not compose a letter
which would be effective. She went to the window and lo