she recognized. Never again
might she be thus near to him, alone with him--the normal routine made it
wholly improbable.--And at midnight too. For the unaccustomed lateness of
the hour undoubtedly added to her ferment, provoking in her obscure and
novel hopes and hungers. Hence she blindly and--her action viewed from a
certain angle--quite heroically precipitated herself. Heroically, because
the odds were hopelessly adverse, her equipment, whether of natural or
artificial, being so conspicuously slender. Her attempt had no backing in
play of feature, felicity of gesture, grace of diction. The commonest
little actress that ever daubed her skin with grease-paint, would have
the advantage of Theresa in the thousand and one arts by which, from
everlasting, woman has limed twigs for the catching of man. Her very
virtues--respectability, learning, all the proprieties of her narrowly
virtuous little life--counted for so much against her in the present
supreme moment of her self-invented romance.

"You hardly, I dare say," she pursued--"how should you after the
commanding positions you have occupied?--appreciate the feelings of the
inhabitants of this quiet country parish towards you. But they have a
lively sense, believe me, of the honour you confer upon them, all and
severally--I am speaking of the educated classes in particular, of
course--by residing among them. They admire and reverence you so much, so
genuinely; and they have extended great kindness to me as a member of
your household. How can I be indifferent to it? I am thankful, Sir
Charles, I am grateful--the more so that I have the happiness of knowing
I owe the consideration with which I am treated, in Deadham, entirely to
you.--Yes, yes," she cried in rising exaltation, "I do not deny that I
went to Harchester yesterday--went--Dr. Horniblow thus expressed it when
inviting me--'as representing The Hard.' I was away when Damaris made
this ill-judged excursion across the river to the Bar. Had she confided
her intention to me, I should have used my authority and forbade her. But
recently we have not been, I grieve to say, on altogether satisfactory
terms, and our parting yesterday was constrained, I am afraid."

Theresa blushed and swallowed. Fortunately her sense of humour was
limited; but, even so, she could not but be aware of a dangerous decline.
Not only of bathos, but of vulgar bathos, from which gentility revolted,
must she be the exponent, thanks to Damaris' in