ective of
hope, that along some pathway they should meet with unchanged
recognition and take up the backward years as a yesterday.

In that hour she repeated what the merciful eyes of solitude have
looked on for ages in the spiritual struggles of man--she besought
hardness and coldness and aching weariness to bring her relief from the
mysterious incorporeal might of her anguish: she lay on the bare floor
and let the night grow cold around her; while her grand woman's frame
was shaken by sobs as if she had been a despairing child.

There were two images--two living forms that tore her heart in two, as
if it had been the heart of a mother who seems to see her child divided
by the sword, and presses one bleeding half to her breast while her
gaze goes forth in agony towards the half which is carried away by the
lying woman that has never known the mother's pang.

Here, with the nearness of an answering smile, here within the
vibrating bond of mutual speech, was the bright creature whom she had
trusted--who had come to her like the spirit of morning visiting the
dim vault where she sat as the bride of a worn-out life; and now, with
a full consciousness which had never awakened before, she stretched out
her arms towards him and cried with bitter cries that their nearness
was a parting vision: she discovered her passion to herself in the
unshrinking utterance of despair.

And there, aloof, yet persistently with her, moving wherever she moved,
was the Will Ladislaw' who was a changed belief exhausted of hope, a
detected illusion--no, a living man towards whom there could not yet
struggle any wail of regretful pity, from the midst of scorn and
indignation and jealous offended pride. The fire of Dorothea's anger
was not easily spent, and it flamed out in fitful returns of spurning
reproach. Why had he come obtruding his life into hers, hers that
might have been whole enough without him? Why had he brought his cheap
regard and his lip-born words to her who had nothing paltry to give in
exchange? He knew that he was deluding her--wished, in the very moment
of farewell, to make her believe that he gave her the whole price of
her heart, and knew that he had spent it half before. Why had he not
stayed among the crowd of whom she asked nothing--but only prayed that
they might be less contemptible?

But she lost energy at last even for her loud-whispered cries and
moans: she subsided into helpless sobs, and on the cold floor s