wer to-day, this evening? Nesta!'

'Mr. Barmby, it will be the same. You will be kind to me in not asking me
again.'

He spoke further. She was dumb.

Had he done ill or well for himself and for her when he named the shadow
on her parents? He dwelt more on her than on himself: he would not have
wounded her to win the blest affirmative. Could she have been entirely
ignorant?--and after Dudley Sowerby's defection? For such it was: the
Rev. Stuart Rem had declared the union between the almost designated head
of the Cantor family and a young person of no name, of worse than no
birth, impossible: 'absolutely and totally impossible,' he, had said, in
his impressive fashion, speaking from his knowledge of the family, and an
acquaintance with Dudley. She must necessarily have learnt why Dudley
Sowerby withdrew. No parents of an attractive daughter should allow her
to remain unaware of her actual position in the world. It is criminal, a
reduplication of the criminality! Yet she had not spoken as one
astonished. She was mysterious. Women are so: young women most of all. It
is undecided still whether they do of themselves conceive principles, or
should submit to an imposition of the same upon them in terrorem.
Mysterious truly, but most attractive! As Lady Bountiful of a district,
she would have in her maturity the majestic stature to suit a
dispensation of earthly good things. And, strangely, here she was, at
this moment, rivalling to excelling all others of her sex (he verified it
in the crowd of female faces passing), when they, if they but knew the
facts, would visit her very appearance beside them on a common footing as
an intrusion and a scandal. To us who know, such matters are indeed
wonderful!

Moved by reflective compassion, Mr. Barmby resumed the wooer's note, some
few steps after he had responded to the salutation of Dartrey Fenellan
and Colonel Sudley. She did not speak. She turned her forehead to him;
and the absence of the world from her eyes chilled his tongue.

He declined the pleasure of the lunch with the Duvidney ladies. He
desired to be alone, to question himself fasting, to sound the deed he
had done; for he had struck on a suspicion of selfishness in it: and
though Love must needs be an egoism, Love is no warrant for the doing of
a hurt to the creature beloved. Thoughts upon Skepsey and the tale of his
Matilda Pridden's labours in poor neighbourhoods, to which he had been
inattentive during the journey