for quarrelling with him. Perhaps it was true that he, too, had of
late loved Mrs Hurtle hardly better than she did herself. It might be
that he had been indeed constrained by hard circumstances to go with
the woman to Lowestoft. Having so gone with her, it was no doubt right
that he should be rejected;--for how can it be that a man who is
engaged shall be allowed to travel about the country with another woman
to whom also he was engaged a few months back? But still there might be
hardship in it. To her, to Hetta herself, the circumstances were very
hard. She loved the man with all her heart. She could look forward to
no happiness in life without him. But yet it must be so.

At the end of his letter he had told her to go to Mrs Hurtle herself
if she wanted corroboration of the story as told by him. Of course he
had known when he wrote it that she could not and would not go to Mrs
Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or four
days,--unanswered, for, as a matter of course, no answer to it from
herself was possible,--and had been read and re-read till she knew
every word of it by heart, she began to think that if she could hear
the story as it might be told by Mrs Hurtle, a good deal that was now
dark might become light to her. As she continued to read the letter,
and to brood over it all, by degrees her anger was turned from her
lover to her mother, her brother, and to her cousin Roger. Paul had of
course behaved badly, very badly,--but had it not been for them she
might have had an opportunity of forgiving him. They had driven her on
to the declaration of a purpose from which she could now see no escape.
There had been a plot against her, and she was a victim. In the first
dismay and agony occasioned by that awful story of the American
woman,--which had, at the moment, struck her with a horror which was now
becoming less and less every hour,--she had fallen head foremost into
the trap laid for her. She acknowledged to herself that it was too late
to recover her ground. She was, at any rate, almost sure that it must
be too late. But yet she was disposed to do battle with her mother and
her cousin in the matter--if only with the object of showing that she
would not submit her own feelings to their control. She was savage to
the point of rebellion against all authority. Roger Carbury would of
course think that any communication between herself and Mrs Hurtle
must be improper,--altogether indelicate.