to the same
shrine, for a whole year; and now, for the first time, I knew that
there was hardly a spot along the entire way, which my heart had not
unconsciously made beautiful and beloved to me by some association with
Margaret Sherwin. Here was the friendly, familiar shop-window, filled
with the glittering trinkets which had so often lured me in to buy
presents for her, on my way to the house. There was the noisy street
corner, void of all adornment in itself, but once bright to me with the
fairy-land architecture of a dream, because I knew that at that place
I had passed over half the distance which separated my home from hers.
Farther on, the Park trees came in sight--trees that no autumn decay or
winter nakedness could make dreary, in the bygone time; for she and I
had walked under them together. And further yet, was the turning which
led from the long, suburban road into Hollyoake Square--the lonely,
dust-whitened place, around which my past happiness and my wasted hopes
had flung their golden illusions, like jewels hung round the coarse
wooden image of a Roman saint. Dishonoured and ruined, it was among
such associations as these--too homely to have been recognised by me in
former times--that I journeyed along the well-remembered way to North
Villa.

I went on without hesitating, without even a thought of turning back. I
had said that the honour of my family should not suffer by the calamity
which had fallen on me; and, while life remained, I was determined that
nothing should prevent me from holding to my word. It was from this
resolution that I drew the faith in myself, the confidence in my
endurance, the sustaining calmness under my father's sentence of
exclusion, which nerved me to go on. I must inevitably see Mr. Sherwin
(perhaps even suffer the humiliation of seeing her!)--must inevitably
speak such words, disclose such truths, as should show him that deceit
was henceforth useless. I must do this and more, I must be prepared to
guard the family to which--though banished from it--I still belonged,
from every conspiracy against them that detected crime or shameless
cupidity could form, whether in the desire of revenge, or in the hope of
gain.. A hard, almost an impossible task--but, nevertheless, a task that
must be done!

I kept the thought of this necessity before my mind unceasingly; not
only as a duty, but as a refuge from another thought, to which I dared
not for a moment turn. The still, pale face whi