? Is it Love? I thought I
_had_ loved, never to love again. Does a woman not love when the man's
hardness to her drives her to drown herself? A man drove _me_ to that
last despair in days gone by. Did all my misery at that time come from
something which was not Love? Have I lived to be five-and-thirty, and
am I only feeling now what Love really is?--now, when it is too late?
Ridiculous! Besides, what is the use of asking? What do I know about
it? What does any woman ever know? The more we think of it, the more
we deceive ourselves. I wish I had been born an animal. My beauty might
have been of some use to me then--it might have got me a good master.

"Here is a whole page of my diary filled; and nothing written yet that
is of the slightest use to me! My miserable made-up story must be told
over again here, while the incidents are fresh in my memory--or how am I
to refer to it consistently on after-occasions when I may be obliged to
speak of it again?

"There was nothing new in what I told him; it was the commonplace
rubbish of the circulating libraries. A dead father; a lost fortune;
vagabond brothers, whom I dread ever seeing again; a bedridden mother
dependent on my exertions--No! I can't write it down! I hate myself,
I despise myself, when I remember that _he_ believed it because I said
it--that _he_ was distressed by it because it was my story! I will
face the chances of contradicting myself--I will risk discovery and
ruin--anything rather than dwell on that contemptible deception of him a
moment longer.

"My lies came to an end at last. And then he talked to me of himself and
of his prospects. Oh, what a relief it was to turn to that at the time!
What a relief it is to come to it now!

"He has accepted the offer about which he wrote to me at Thorpe Ambrose;
and he is now engaged as occasional foreign correspondent to the new
newspaper. His first destination is Naples. I wish it had been some
other place, for I have certain past associations with Naples which I
am not at all anxious to renew. It has been arranged that he is to
leave England not later than the eleventh of next month. By that time,
therefore, I, who am to go with him, must go with him as his wife.

"There is not the slightest difficulty about the marriage. All this part
of it is so easy that I begin to dread an accident.

"The proposal to keep the thing strictly private--which it might have
embarrassed me to make--comes from Midwinter. Marrying