and commented upon it with a clear mind. In the course of the evening
she told her friends of the arrangement between Mr. Eldon and herself.

Two days later she had to call at the solicitor's office to sign the
deed of release. Incidentally she learnt that Hubert was leaving England
the same evening.

Had she been at home, these days would have been spent in solitude. For
the first time she suffered in Stella's company. All allusion to Hubert
was avoided between them. Sometimes she could hardly play her part;
sickness of the soul wasted her.

It was morning; he was now on the Continent, perhaps already talking
with someone he loved.

She was ashamed to have so deceived herself; she had feared him, because
she believed he loved her, and that by sympathy he might see into her
heart. Had it been so, he could not have gone from her in this way.
Forgetting her own pride, her own power of dissimulation, she did not
believe it possible for him so to disguise tenderness. She would listen
to no argument of hope, but crushed her heart with perverse cruelty.

The annual payment of money had been a link between him and her; when
she signed the deed releasing him, the cold sweat stood on her forehead.

She would reason. Of what excellence was he possessed that her life
should so abandon itself at his feet? In what had he proved himself
generous or capable of the virtues that subdue? Such reasoning led to
self-mockery. She was no longer the girl who questioned her heart as
to the significance of the vows required in the marriage service; in
looking back upon those struggles she could have wept for pity. Love
would submit to no analysis; it was of her life; as easy to account for
the power of thought. Her soul was bare to her and all its needs.
There was no refuge in ascetic resolve, in the self-deceit of spiritual
enthusiasm. She could say to herself: You are free to love him; then
love and be satisfied. Could she, when a-hungered, look on food, and bid
her hunger be appeased by the act of sight?

Thus long she had held up, but despair was closing in upon her, and an
anguish worse than death. She must leave this house and go where she
might surrender herself to misery. There was no friend whose comfort
could be other than torment and bitter vanity; such woe as hers only
time and weariness could aid.

She was rising with the firm purpose of taking leave of Stella when a
servant came to her door, announcing that Mr. Eldon des