Robert Orange

that poor girl was endeavouring to reconcile herself to the Duke of Marshire's proposal. Pensée had studied each person concerned in the possible

ssable. But it was not in nature that a woman who understood a man could look on, inactive and indifferent, while he fettered himself with some damaging influence. Perhaps her ladyship felt the situation the more keenly, because, much as she loved Mrs. Parflete, she could not bring herself to think that she was the wife for Robert. She had spent many weeks refusing admittance to this thought, yet prudence was prudence, and, by virtue of its stability, it prevailed. The union, even viewed in the most favourable light, had always seemed imprudent. It was too hurried. Shocking, mortifying as the possibility of its being illegal was, Pensée's conviction that Almighty God ordered all things for the best seemed less a faith and more a matter of pure reason than was usual in the ordinary run of hard cases which made demands upon her piety. "Two diamonds do not easily form cu

h they were bound, and the strangeness of the whole proceeding. Reckage noticed that his companion was attired so correctly and with such discretion that no one could have told she was a pretty woman. Her veil w

rd when the circumstances are known. I hope poo

ge re

ehaved like

who had no idea of marrying her. She had declared that she could not understand it-an attitude pleasing to her fancy and gratifying to her pride. Reckage had thought it was not quite clear that the danger was immediate. Such was his feeling now toward Pensée, although he was conscious of a certain curiosity with regard to her motive in taking Brigit's part with such magnificent self-effacement. This seemed to him unnatural; and although she had impressed him with the highest opinion of her kindn

irl," said Pensée suddenly

rted from h

sed into candour. "I was thinki

ch on his face, but s

father, although he may not realise it. Yet he is forcing on the engagement to Marshire. She keeps u

d said, looking o

some reason or other, we ar

do, or how she will bear her lif

t th

nstantly, reading to him, and doing everything for him.

of the dismay which will attend

hope that y

smiled with an a

But-but he certainly seems, in character, the culminating point of med

eal love-if it were a happy one-would make her even more charming, and if it caused her suffering,

n to play round this thought, r

could literally live one's theories on moral strength, it would be a complete refutation of these ideas about the influence of money or a big accidental position. Old Harding

s his choice, on the whole, justifies, either by her beauty, or her talents, or something uncommon, an extreme measure. Now, R

carry his feeling into action. Robert, with all his mysticism, is never subject to the deep depressions of spirit which usually afflict men of his g

s asto

you unders

ttle and adopted a mo

side. It is a kind of second-sight. What a wife for a Prime Minister! And Marshire, a fellow of middling ability and no experience, has had the sense to perceive he

in your ow

everal minutes silent, and finally r

that of time. Time ultimately cures everything. It is a mat

rmured Pensé

e at a frank exposition of his embarrassed sentiments. It seemed to him that she was intelligent as well as trustworthy, and he fel

ill-too interested, you have not obser

hat time seems only to dee

In times of trial my pen is my refuge. I could not write for a year after I had

oposed to her? There was ne

ot mislead her in any way. I was even over-scrupulous, and purposely avoided opportunities of meeting. I say this in order that you may know how very

he remained entirely alone; and solitude is full of bad thing

to be formed. As a matter of fact, my family wouldn't hear of the

er. He leant back and relied on his c

e mur

they won't come from her side. S

, but she

petty feelings could ever influence her mind. She is the most angelic, good woman I ev

them," said he, "but you know, by sympathy, that my affection for her is-

t finish th

enance encouraged her to pursue this train of thought. "Agnes has the deepest admiration for your qualities. No doubt, you truly realise the high

ery touched b

said he, "ought to make u

es, clasped her hands tightly together,

During the last week she has had many ups and downs. She has passed with astonishing rapidity from the lowest despair to the height of joy. She ha

ldlike openness-up

has become of late strangely intense and vivid-she is fascinated by books, and drawn to music, as she never was before. Perhaps she sees that you give her a priceles

e subject. She desired merely that Reckage should learn how the engagement might be broken off without giving unimaginable grief to the y

id at

is inflexibly conscientious and self-denying. Several years of attachment have tried us both. She knows my faults; I know where her"-he paused for a moment-"her

shook h

was right," she

late. This throws a grisly responsibility upon me. I must risk everything, if I am to do anythin

; I say she seems disturbed and unsettled whe

eat. A neutrality on your part is all I could in rea

hed a little prayer for the well-being of

at a rapid pace; "she came up for some shoppi

ld me that she was in

n't wish to take up his time; an engagement ought not to be

cacy was most uncalled for. It wasn't even friendly. When we

n you wer

, indeed. One would infer that I had failed in some

ng. She meant it i

etween noble conduct and a downright s

It convinced her, at least, of the sincerity of his feelings towards Agnes

and, if I am indiscreet, forgive me? She wants all the sympathy and support she can get. She is suffering very much from want of courage. She trusts, perhaps, in her friends' prayers.

uch, and she trembled with an exci

er or stronger, but, on the whole, constantly growing, that Agnes and I are uns

-I mean so much painfulnes

Lookers-on have no patience with moral combats-and least of all in affairs of this kind. But no opinion will force me to do what I do not think right. If our engagement is a mistake, I don't intend to 'lump it,' as they say

she remained silent, fearing lest a

were all wrong at home when they made out that she was in love with me, and expected me to propose. We are both the victims of an impertinent, if wel

lp but resignation to the

id Reckage. "It is a shade better than the a

he thought and all he felt. Some live a dual life-he lived but one; and, with his faults, peculiarities, and egoism, there was never the least dissimulation. It was true that, if occa

is own troubles aside, and, out of mere decency, concent

is said of, or done to, one's self; but that all this uncommon, saddening, sickening trou

ly very fond of

. He's so

alousy had no part in her suffering. Robert had never given her the smallest right to feel slighted, or neglected, or abandoned. Some women are jealous by temperament, but the greater number are jealous only when their trust is insulted or their dignity brought down to the humiliating struggle for a lost empire. Empire over Orange she had never possessed or claimed: she could feel no bitterness, therefore, at the thought of the small place she occupied in his destiny. The sorrow which cut and severed her heart was loneliness. She felt that, after the wedding, she could hardly do anything or take interest in anything. It seemed as if the waters were gathered in heaps on eit

ength for the marriage ceremony. She was by nature and before all things, from first to last, unalterably a good friend, and at that moment of intensest difficulty the sight of Robert's happiness had made her oblivious to every other consideration. Glad tears had risen to her eyes. She had been swayed by one feeling-a deep, sincere thankfulness that his love-story, whi

by a tinkling prattle on every topic except the one nearest his heart. Oh, how fearfully wide asunder they were! A sensation of the enormous distance which can exist between two souls in daily companionship filled her with a sickening, shivering heaviness. She thought she would have to cry out because of the slow fire which seemed to scorch her dry and aching eyes. Robert would never really need her, never really care about her. This new trouble would take him farther away than ever. He would burn all his ships, and any poor little tenderness he might have had in the past for her, with them. Some great revulsion would take place in his character; he would perhaps grow silent, reserved, enigmatic, his face would show to the world the terrible, false, unknowable peace which is the veil of the dead. It was useless to smooth her difficulties which existed. It was foolish and wrong to encourage herself in unreal ideas about him. It was best always to be straightforward and admit the truth-no matter how bitter. And yet he had been kind and helpful to her in a way in which scarce any one else could have been. She clung to the belief that she would be able to do something to make his hour o

ng Churchmen. He revived a touching acquaintance with Agnes Carillon, an acquaintance which was peculiarly soothing to his preoccupied mind. Here was a girl, he thought, who could be a fit helpmate. She asked for nothing, absorbed nothing, and gave a great deal of gentle, kind companionship when he wanted it. When he did not want it, she understood perfectly-possessing, in an eminent degree, the rare domestic art of being able to make herself scarce-alike in his thoughts and his engagements. The truths did not occur to him that a woman in love could never have been so unnaturally prudent, or that a woman whom he loved could not have interested him so slightly. He took great pride in her perfect skin and hair and eyes, in her beautiful, graceful, and gracious manners, but his soul never kindled at her approach, his pulse beat no slower at her departure. He requited her agreeableness with respect. And so they had become engaged-to the unbounded gratification of all his relatives, amidst the congratulations of his friends. There seemed a certain shadowiness in his conception of their future existence together as man and wife: something which he recognised as an interior voice chimed in, from time to time, with provoking interrogations, mostly unanswerable. A plaintive need of happiness, melancholy, obscure, but recurrent, mixed in his fluctuating thoughts. Finally, it pursued him, haunted him, and caught him with the strange tenacity of an incorporeal grasp. Sara, now dethroned from her place of power, loomed in all his dreams. Irresistibly, he was drawn toward the forbidden recollection of her delightfulness. There seemed no longer any danger in these musings. He had entrusted his actual life to the safe-keeping of the nicest woman he had ever known. Where then was the harm in harking back, merely in reverie, to the frivolous, amusing phantom of a renounced sentiment? Yet, after a reverie of the kind, why did he often wonder how he and Agnes could look in one another's faces and pretend to any sort of real intimacy? Sara knew him better than he knew himself. Her sympathy ran into a hundred sinuosities-she understood his silence as well as his conversation. He was never conscious of the smallest strain, the least dissimulation, in her society. Beneath their curious disparities an identity seemed to unite them. There was an unrepenting quality in her conscience which braced and stimulated his moral courage. Agnes, on the contrary, with her instinct of behaviour, made him over-cautious and encouraged the tendency to indecision which interfered with the comfortable balance of his soul. And he wished his faculties to work with astronomic punctuality. It is certain, however, that he would have accepted his choice as a thing settled beyond any readjustment, but for the news of the Duke of Marshire's proposal, and the sight of Sara herself on the fatal afternoon when he was feeling especially forlorn. She had thrown him a glance in which defiance, disdain, and an indistinct affection were blended in one provoking dart. He was a moralist who believed that there is always, between men and women, the dormant principles of mistrust and hatred. He had discussed this theory frequently with Robert, who found the notion as repulsive as it was false. But it seemed a truth beyond contradiction to Reckage, who possessed, in his own mind, constant irrefutable testimony in support of the view. Sara had never before defied him. She had never before seemed to feel her power as a creature incomparably superior in brilliancy to all the other girls in their circle. She had never before seemed to pity him as a man who had feared to do what Marshire-a being considered remarkable only for his family and his fortune-had boldly, gladly volunteered to carry out to the ultimate consequence. That glance pierced his self-love, his pride, his will. After his long hesitations, after the wearisome, interminable debates