imself compelled to do so by the exigencies of the moment.
It was impossible that he should give either one or the other to
understand that they would not be allowed to meet in his house. They
had met, and Mary had been very firm. For a few hours there had
existed in his bosom the feeling that even yet he might be preferred.

But gradually that feeling had disappeared, and the truth had come
home to him. She was as much in love with John Gordon as could any
girl be with the man whom she adored. And the other rock on which he
had depended was gradually shivered beneath his feet. He had fancied
at first that the man had come back, as do so many adventurers,
without the means of making a woman happy. It was not for John Gordon
that he was solicitous, but for Mary Lawrie. If John Gordon were a
pauper, or so nearly so as to be able to offer Mary no home, then it
would clearly be his duty not to allow the marriage. In such case the
result to him would be, if not heavenly, sweet enough at any rate to
satisfy his longings. She would come to him, and John Gordon would
depart to London, and to the world beyond, and there would be an end
of him. But it became palpable to his senses generally that the man's
fortunes had not been such as this. And then there came home to him a
feeling that were they so, it would be his duty to make up for Mary's
sake what was wanting,--since he had discovered of what calibre was
the man himself.

It was at Mr Hall's house that the idea had first presented itself
to him with all the firmness of a settled project. It would be, he
had said to himself, a great thing for a man to do. What, after all,
is the meaning of love, but that a man should do his best to serve
the woman he loves? "Who cares a straw for him?" he said to himself,
as though to exempt himself from any idea of general charity, and to
prove that all the good which he intended to do was to be done for
love alone. "Not a straw; whether he shall stay at home here and
have all that is sweetest in the world, or be sent out alone to find
fresh diamonds amidst the dirt and misery of that horrid place, is as
nothing, as far as he is concerned. I am, at any rate, more to myself
than John Gordon. I do not believe in doing a kindness of such a
nature as that to such a one. But for her--! And I could not hold her
to my bosom, knowing that she would so much rather be in the arms of
another man." All this he said to himself; but he said it in words