ter choral services, and seemed to
take it for granted that the service was only of full efficacy when
performed together with her....

'Let me die now! It is only for this that I have lived!'

The cry came from her very heart. For once Wilfrid had been overcome,
had thrown off his rather sad-coloured wooing, had uttered such words as
her soul yearned for. Yet she had scarcely time to savour her rapture
before that jealousy of the past mingled itself with the sensation. Even
such words as these he must have used to _her_, and had they not
perchance come more readily to his lips? Was he by nature so reserved?
Or, the more probable thing, was it that she failed at other times to
inspire him? How had _she_ been used to behave, to speak?

In her incessant brooding upon the details of Wilfrid's first affection,
Beatrice had found one point which never lost its power to distract her;
it was the thought of all the correspondence that must have passed
between him and Emily. What had become of those letters? Had they been
mutually returned? It was impossible to discover. Not even to her aunt
could she put such a question as that; and it might very well be that
Mrs. Baxendale knew nothing certainly. If the story as she, Beatrice,
had heard it was quite accurate, it seemed natural to suppose that Emily
had requested to have her letters returned to her when she declared that
the engagement must be at an end; but Wilfrid had refused to accept that
declaration, and would he not also have refused to let the writing which
was so precious to him leave his hands? In that case he probably had the
letters still; perhaps he still read them at times. Would it be
possible, even after marriage, to speak of such a subject with Wilfrid?
She had constantly tried to assure herself that, even if he had kept the
pledges through all these years, a sense of honour would lead Wilfrid to
destroy them when he gave and received a new love. In moments when it
was her conscious effort to rise to noble heights, to be as pure a woman
as that other--for Beatrice never sought the base comfort of refusing
to her rival that just homage--she 'would half persuade herself that no
doubt lingered in her mind; it was right to destroy the letters, and
whatever was right Wilfrid must have done. But she could not live at all
hours in that thin air; the defects of her blood were too enduring.
Jealousy came back from its brief exile, and was more insinuating than
ever, it