d,
to give myself up to a man of whom I know so little, who is not even
a Christian, much less a Churchman! Ay! and to give up my will to
any man! to become the subject, the slave, of another human being!
I, who have worshipped the belief in woman's independence, the hope
of woman's enfranchisement, who have felt how glorious it is to live
like the angels, single and self-sustained! What if I cut the
Gordian knot, and here make, once for all, a vow of perpetual
celibacy?'

She flung herself on her knees--she could not collect her thoughts.

'No,' she said, 'I am not prepared for this. It is too solemn to be
undertaken in this miserable whirlwind of passion. I will fast, and
meditate, and go up formally to the little chapel, and there devote
myself to God; and, in the meantime, to write at once to the
superior of the Beguines; to go to my mother, and tell her once for
all--What? Must I lose him?--must I give him up? Not his love--I
cannot give up that--would that I could! but no! he will love me for
ever. I know it as well as if an angel told me. But to give up
him! Never to see him! never to hear his voice! never to walk with
him among the beech woods any more! Oh, Argemone! Argemone!
miserable girl! and is it come to this?' And she threw herself on
the sofa, and hid her face in her hands.

Yes, Argemone, it is come to this; and the best thing you can do, is
just what you are doing--to lie there and cry yourself to sleep,
while the angels are laughing kindly (if a solemn public, who
settles everything for them, will permit them to laugh) at the
rickety old windmill of sham-Popery which you have taken for a real
giant.

At that same day and hour, as it chanced, Lancelot, little dreaming
what the said windmill was grinding for him, was scribbling a hasty
and angry answer to a letter of Luke's, which, perhaps, came that
very morning in order to put him into a proper temper for the
demolishing of windmills. It ran thus,--

'Ay, my good Cousin,--So I expected--

'Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem . . .

Pleasant and easy for you Protestants (for I will call you what you
are, in spite of your own denials, a truly consistent and logical
Protestant--and therefore a Materialist)--easy for you, I say, to
sit on the shore, in cold, cruel self-satisfaction, and tell the
poor wretch buffeting with the waves what he ought