angry with him. His
love is as precious to me as it ever was, and I will not give up the
tokens of it. Why, Maria, you surely cannot suppose that these things
have any other value or use but as given by him! You cannot suppose
that I dread the imputation of keeping them for their own sakes!"

"No: but--"

"But what?"

"Is any proof of his former regard of value now? That is the question.
It has only very lately become a question with me. I have only lately
learned to think him in fault. I excused him before... I excused him
as long as I could."

"You will unlearn your present opinion of him. Yes; everything that was
ever valuable from him is more precious than ever now,--now that he is
under a spell, and cannot speak his soul. If it were, as you think, if
he loved me no longer, they would be still more precious, as a relic of
the dead. But it is not so."

"If faith can remove mountains, we may have to rejoice for you still,
Margaret; for there can be no mass of calumnies between you and him
which you have not faith enough to overthrow."

"Thank you for that. It is the best word of comfort that has come to me
from without for many a day. Now there is one thing more in which you
can perhaps help me. I have heard nothing about him for so long! You
see Mr Rowland sometimes (I know he feels a great friendship for you);
and you meet the younger children. Do you hear nothing whatever about
_him_?"

"Nothing: nor do they. Mr Rowland told me, a fortnight ago, that Mrs
Rowland and he are seriously uneasy at obtaining no answers to their
repeated letters to Mr Enderby. Mrs Rowland is more disturbed, I
believe, than she chooses to show. She must feel herself responsible.
She has tried various means of accounting for his silence, all the
autumn. Now she gives that up, and is silent in her turn. If it were
not for the impossibility of leaving home at such a time as this, Mr
Rowland would go to London to satisfy himself. Margaret, I believe you
are the only person who has smiled at this."

"Perhaps I am the only one who understands him. I had rather know of
this silence than of all the letters he could have written to Mrs
Rowland. If he had been ill, they would certainly have heard."

"Yes; they say so."

"Then that is enough. Let us say no more now."

"You have said that which has cheered me for you, Margaret, though, as
we poor irreligious human beings often say to each other, `I wish I had
you