e, strained me
to him with great force.

"Emilia!" he cried, "I love you very much; I have never told you how
much I love you!"

I knew it to be the last cry of his conscience, but, as I lay there
listening to the beat of his heart, there fled from me what little
yet remained of my conquered spirit's strength and noble purpose.
Only the woman in me cried aloud, "I cannot!"

I tried to speak, but the words came almost as a sob. Quickly I
threw my arms about his neck and, bending his face towards me,
kissed him of my own accord as he smiled; then, breaking from him,
would have run homewards.

But he held me by the hand.

"When shall I come to-morrow?" asked he, hoarsely.

"Not at all," said I. "Go, Gabriel! God help me; I love you too
much!"

And so we did not meet next day, and the next we were married.

* * * * *

For many months I made believe that we were happy. Ah! it was not
all make-belief! I have had great joys.

Never was the game of happiness easier to play at than it was for
Gabriel and me in the first year of our marriage. He was very much
attached to me, and I loved him.

It was the first time he had been out of England; the sights he saw
filled him with rapture and insatiable curiosity, to appease which I
led him from place to place until I had shown him all I knew, and
still we went onwards, covering new ground together.

We never stayed very long in the same spot; a certain weariness
crept over me at times, but I saw that it was best for him to keep
continually on the wing; and indeed, having no desire on earth but
his happiness, I was ready, for his sake, to wander my whole life
away. Moreover, as he was not working at all the while, I looked
forward to a day when inspiration might set in, together with
satiety, when he too might yearn, as I did, to sit in peace beside a
hearth of his own.

Constance wrote to us occasionally, and I to her. Her letters to me
were the same as of old, full of love and sweetness; she nearly
always mentioned Gabriel, but not in such a way as to denote
preoccupation. My letters to her were not as they had been; I felt
this at the time. On rereading them just now I burned them
all,--there was no breath in them.

Mrs. Rayner had taken Fairview, the nearest house to Fletcher's
Hall, soon after my marriage, and set her cap at Uncle George with
so much persistence that he engaged himself to her the following
summer. So my sweet gir