Good-by to what--or to whom?

All that the fire revealed, as she laid the packet on it, stirring it down
into a red hollow, so that not a flickering fragment should be left
unconsumed, were four letters--only four--written on dainty paper, in a
man's hand, sealed with a man's large heraldic seal. When they were
mere dust, Christian rose.

"It is over now--quite over. In the whole world there is nobody to
believe in--except him. He is very good, and he loves me. I was right
to marry him--yes, quite right."

She repeated this more than once, as if compelling herself to
acknowledge it, and then paused.

Christian was not exactly a religious woman--that is, she had lived
among such utterly irreligious people, that whatever she thought or felt
upon these subjects had to be kept entirely to herself--but she was of a
religious nature. She said her prayers duly, and she had one habit--or
superstition, some might sneeringly call it--that the last thing before she
went on a journey she always opened her Bible; read a verse or two,
and knelt down, if only to say, "God, take care of me, and bring me
safe back again;" petitions that in many a wretched compelled
wandering were not so uncalled for as some might suppose. Before this
momentous journey she did the same; but, instead of a Bible, it
happened to be the children's Prayer-Book which she took up; it opened
at the Marriage Service, which they had been inquisitively conning
over; and the first words which flashed upon Christian's eyes were
those which had two hours ago passed over her deaf ears, and dull,
uncomprehending heart--

_"For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and be
joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh."_

She started, as if only now she began to comprehend the full force of
that awful union--"one flesh" and "till death us do part."

Mrs. Ferguson tried the door, and knocked.

"Dr. Grey is waiting, my dear. You must not keep your husband waiting."

"My husband!" and again, came the wild look, as of a free
creature suddenly caught, tied, and bound. "What have I done? oh
what have I done? Is it _too_ late?"

Ay, it was too late.

Many a woman has married with far less excuse that Christian did--
married for money or position, or in a cowardly yielding to family
persuasion, some one who she knew did not love her, or whom she did
not love, with the only sort of love which makes marriage sacred.
What agonies suc