rd, and to forbid her
all happiness for the future,--to make her his wife, let her heart be
as it might;--had he said: "you have come to my house, and have eaten
my bread and have drunk of my cup, and have then promised to become
my wife, and now you shall not depart from it because this interloper
has come between us;"--then, though she might have felt him to be
cruel, still she would have respected him. He would have done, as she
believed, as other men do. But he wished to gain his object, and yet
not appear to be cruel. It was so that she thought of him. "And it
shall be as he would have it," she said to herself. But though she
saw far into his character, she did not quite read it aright.

He remained there alone in his library into the late hours of the
night. But he did not even take up a book with the idea of solacing
his hours. He too had his idea of self-sacrifice, which went quite
as far as hers. But yet he was not as sure as was she that the
self-sacrifice would be a duty. He did not believe, as did she, in
the character of John Gordon. What if he should give her up to one
who did not deserve her,--to one whose future would not be stable
enough to secure the happiness and welfare of such a woman as was
Mary Lawrie! He had no knowledge to guide him, nor had she;--nor, for
the matter of that, had John Gordon himself any knowledge of what his
own future might be. Of his own future Mr Whittlestaff could speak
and think with the greatest confidence. It would be safe, happy, and
bright, should Mary Lawrie become his wife. Should she not do so, it
must be altogether ruined and confounded.

He could not conceive it to be possible that he should be required
by duty to make such a sacrifice; but he knew of himself that if her
happiness, her true and permanent happiness, would require it, then
the sacrifice should be made.

CHAPTER XVI.

MRS BAGGETT'S PHILOSOPHY.

The next day was Saturday, and Mr Whittlestaff came out of his room
early, intending to speak to Mrs Baggett. He had declared to himself
that it was his purpose to give her some sound advice respecting her
own affairs,--as far as her affairs and his were connected together.
But low down in his mind, below the stratum in which his declared
resolution was apparent to himself, there was a hope that he might
get from her some comfort and strength as to his present purpose. Not
but that he would ultimately do as he himself had determined; but, to
tell