a certain melancholy which is depressing you. Your regard to
me is worth now more than any other possession or gift that the world
can bestow. And I had taken pride to myself in saying that it had
been given." Yes;--her regard! She could not contradict him as to
that. "And have you thought of your own position? After all that
has passed between us, you can hardly go on living here as you have
done."

"I know that."

"Then, what would become of you if you were to break away from me?"

"I thought you would get a place for me as a governess,--or a
companion to some lady."

"Would that satisfy your ambition? I have got a place for you;--but
it is here." As he spoke, he laid his hand upon his heart. "Not as
a companion to a lady are you required to fulfil your duties here
on earth. It is a fuller task of work that you must do. I trust,--I
trust that it may not be more tedious." She looked at him again,
and he did not now appear so old. There was a power of speech about
the man, and a dignity which made her feel that she could in truth
have loved him,--had it not been for John Gordon. "Unfortunately, I
am older than you,--very much older. But to you there may be this
advantage, that you can listen to what I may say with something of
confidence in my knowledge of the world. As my wife, you will fill
a position more honourable, and more suitable to your gifts, than
could belong to you as a governess or a companion. You will have
much more to do, and will be able to go nightly to your rest with a
consciousness that you have done more as the mistress of our house
than you could have done in that tamer capacity. You will have
cares,--and even those will ennoble the world to you, and you to the
world. That other life is a poor shrunken death,--rather than life.
It is a way of passing her days, which must fall to the lot of many
a female who does not achieve the other; and it is well that they
to whom it falls should be able to accommodate themselves to it
with contentment and self-respect. I think that I may say of myself
that, even as my wife, you will stand higher than you would do as a
companion."

"I am sure of it."

"Not on that account should you accept any man that you cannot love."
Had she not told him that she did not love him;--even that she loved
another? And yet he spoke to her in this way! "You had better tell
Mrs Baggett to come to me."

"There is the memory of that other man," she murmured very gently.

T