seen about them and know what may be known instead of
decorously waiting for the astonishment of revelations. As soon as she
had asked herself the nature of the design of so honourable a man as
Captain Philip in showing her his cousin's letter, her blood spun round
and round, waving the reply as a torch; and the question of his character
confirmed it.

But could he be imagined seeking to put her on her guard? There may be
modesty in men well aware of their personal attractions: they can credit
individual women with powers of resistance. He was not vain to the degree
which stupefies the sense of there being weight or wisdom in others. And
he was honour's own. By these lights of his character she read the act.
His intention was . . . and even while she saw it accurately, the moment
of keen perception was overclouded by her innate distrust of her claim to
feminine charms. For why should he wish her to understand that he was no
fortune-hunter and treated heiresses with greater reserve than ordinary
women! How could it matter to him?

She saw the tears roll. Tears of men sink plummet-deep; they find their
level. The tears of such a man have more of blood than of water in
them.--What was she doing when they fell? She was shading his head from
the sun. What, then, if those tears came of the repressed desire to thank
her with some little warmth? He was honour's own, and warmhearted Patrick
talked of him as a friend whose heart was, his friend's. Thrilling to
kindness, and, poor soul! helpless to escape it, he felt perhaps that he
had never thanked her, and could not. He lay there, weak and tongue-tied:
hence those two bright volumes of his condition of weakness.

So the pursuit of the mystery ended, as it had commenced, in confusion,
but of a milder sort and partially transparent at one or two of the gates
she had touched. A mind capable of seeing was twisted by a nature that
would not allow of open eyes; yet the laden emotions of her nature
brought her round by another channel to the stage neighbouring sight,
where facts, dimly recognised for such--as they may be in truth, are
accepted under their disguises, because disguise of them is needed by the
bashful spirit which accuses itself of audaciousness in presuming to
speculate. Had she asked herself the reason of her extended speculation,
her foot would not have stopped more abruptly on the edge of a torrent
than she on that strange road of vapours and flying lights. She did