aded with
tears, it was impossible to lay another burden on her.

But time went on, and he felt it a pressing duty to make the difficult
disclosure. Gwendolen, it was true, never recognized his having any
affairs; and it had never even occurred to her to ask him why he
happened to be at Genoa. But this unconsciousness of hers would make a
sudden revelation of affairs that were determining his course in life
all the heavier blow to her; and if he left the revelation to be made
by different persons, she would feel that he had treated her with cruel
inconsiderateness. He could not make the communication in writing: his
tenderness could not bear to think of her reading his virtual farewell
in solitude, and perhaps feeling his words full of a hard gladness for
himself and indifference for her. He went down to Diplow again, feeling
that every other peril was to be incurred rather than that of returning
and leaving her still in ignorance.

On this third visit Deronda found Hans Meyrick installed with his easel
at Diplow, beginning his picture of the three daughters sitting on a
bank, "in the Gainsborough style," and varying his work by rambling to
Pennicote to sketch the village children and improve his acquaintance
with the Gascoignes. Hans appeared to have recovered his vivacity, but
Deronda detected some feigning in it, as we detect the artificiality of
a lady's bloom from its being a little too high-toned and steadily
persistent (a "Fluctuating Rouge" not having yet appeared among the
advertisements). Also with all his grateful friendship and admiration
for Deronda, Hans could not help a certain irritation against him, such
as extremely incautious, open natures are apt to feel when the breaking
of a friend's reserve discloses a state of things not merely
unsuspected but the reverse of what had been hoped and ingeniously
conjectured. It is true that poor Hans had always cared chiefly to
confide in Deronda, and had been quite incurious as to any confidence
that might have been given in return; but what outpourer of his own
affairs is not tempted to think any hint of his friend's affairs is an
egotistic irrelevance? That was no reason why it was not rather a sore
reflection to Hans that while he had been all along naively opening his
heart about Mirah, Deronda had kept secret a feeling of rivalry which
now revealed itself as the important determining fact. Moreover, it is
always at their peril that our friends turn out to be