twice over, once before the Jesuit father from
Stonyhurst, once before jolly, hunting heretical parson Cochrane to
cleave to Adrian Landale till death bid you part! Brr--what ghastly
words and with what a light heart I said them, tripped them out, _ma
foi_, as gaily as "good-morning" or "good-night!" They were to be the
_open sesame_ to joys untold, to lands flowing with milk and honey, to
romance, adventure, splendour--and what have they brought me?

It is a cold day, sleeting, snowing, blowing, all that is abominable.
My lord and master has ridden off, despite it, to some distant farm
where there has been a fire. The "Good Sir Adrian," as they call him
now--he is _that_; but, oh dear me--there! I must yawn, and I'll say
no more on this head, at present, for I want to think and work my
wretched problem out in earnest, and not go to sleep.

It is the first time I have taken heart to write since yonder day of
doom, and God knows when I shall have heart again! Upon such an
afternoon there is nothing better to do, since Sir Adrian would have
none of my company--he is so precious of me that he fears I should
melt like sugar in the wet--he never guessed that it was just because
of the storm I wished the ride! Were we to live a hundred years
together--which, God forfend--he would never understand me.

Ah, lack-a-day, oh, misery me! (My lady, you are wandering; come back
to business.)

What, then, has marriage brought me? First of all a husband. That is
to say, another person, a man who has the right to me--to whom I
myself have given that right--to have me, to hold me, as it runs in
the terrible service, the thunders of which were twice rolled out upon
my head, and which have been ringing there ever since. And I, Molly,
gave of my own free will, that best and most blessed of all gifts, my
own free will, away. I am surrounded, as it were, by barriers; hemmed
in, bound up, kept in leading strings. I mind me of the seagull on the
island. 'Tis all in the most loving care in the world, of course, but
oh! the oppression of it! I must hide my feelings as well as I can,
for in my heart I would not grieve that good man, that _excellent_
man, that pattern of kind gentleman--oh, oh, oh--it will out--that
_dreary_ man, that dull man, that most melancholy of all men! Who
sighs more than he smiles, and, I warrant, of the two, his sighs are
the more cheerful; who looks at his beautiful wife as if he saw a
ghost, and kisses her as if he