ent with herself. It cannot be supposed that she looked back on
the past events of her life with any self-satisfaction. There was no
self-satisfaction, but in truth there was more self-reproach than she
deserved. As a girl she had loved her cousin George passionately, and
that love had failed her. She did not tell herself that she had been
wrong when she gave him up, but she thought herself to have been
most unfortunate in the one necessity. After such an experience as
that, would it not have been better for her to have remained without
further thought of marriage?

Then came that terrible episode in her life for which she never could
forgive herself. She had accepted Mr Grey because she liked him and
honoured him. "And I did love him," she said to herself, now on this
morning. Poor, wretched, heart-wrung woman! As she sat there thinking
of it all in her solitude she was to be pitied at any rate, if not to
be forgiven. Now, as she thought of Nethercoats, with its quiet life,
its gardens, its books, and the peaceful affectionate ascendancy of
him who would have been her lord and master, her feelings were very
different from those which had induced her to resolve that she would
not stoop to put her neck beneath that yoke. Would it not have been
well for her to have a master who by his wisdom and strength could
save her from such wretched doubtings as these? But she had refused
to bend, and then she had found herself desolate and alone in the
world.

"If I can do him good why should I not marry him?" In that feeling
had been the chief argument which had induced her to return such
an answer as she had sent to her cousin. "For myself, what does it
matter? As to this life of mine and all that belongs to it, why
should I regard it otherwise than to make it of some service to
some one who is dear to me?" He had been ever dear to her from her
earliest years. She believed in his intellect, even if she could not
believe in his conduct. Kate, her friend, longed for this thing. As
for that dream of love, it meant nothing; and as for those arguments
of prudence,--that cold calculation about her money, which all people
seemed to expect from her,--she would throw it to the winds. What if
she were ruined! There was always the other chance. She might save
him from ruin, and help him to honour and fortune.

But then, when the word was once past her lips, there returned to her
that true woman's feeling which made her plead for a long da