me how hard a man's heart
may become by living in the world." Then she left him alone and went
her way.

He took his hat and escaped from the Hotel and walked along the
Elbe all alone. He went far down the river, and did not return for
many hours. At first his thoughts were full of anger against his
sister, though he acknowledged that she had taken great trouble in
coming there on a mission intended to be beneficent to them both.
With the view solely of doing her duty to her brother and to her
sister-in-law, she had taken infinite trouble; yet he was very angry
with her. Being a woman she had most unjustly taken the part of
another woman against him. Cecilia would have suffered but little in
having been forced to acknowledge her great sin. But he would suffer
greatly,--he who had sinned not at all,--by the tacit confession
which he would be thus compelled to make. It was true that it was
necessary that he should return. The happiness of them all, including
that unborn child, required it. His sister knowing this demanded that
he should sacrifice himself in order that his wife might be indulged
in her pride. And yet he knew that he must do it. Though he might go
to her in silence, and in silence renew his married life, he would by
so doing confess that he had been wrong. To such confession he should
not be driven. In the very gall of bitterness, and with the sense of
injustice strong upon him, he did resolve that he would return to
England with his sister. But having so resolved, with his wrath hot
against Lady Grant, his mind was gradually turned to Cecilia and her
condition. How sweet would it be to have her once again sitting at
his table, once again leaning on his arm, once again looking up into
his face with almost comical doubt, seeking to find in his eyes what
answer he would best like her to make when referring to her for some
decision. "It is your opinion that I want," he would say. "Ah! but
if I only knew yours I should be so much better able to have one of
my own." Then there would come a look over her face which almost
maddened him when he thought that he should never see it again. It
was the idea that she who could so look at him should have looked
with the same smile into the face of that other man which had driven
him to fury;--that she should have so looked in those very days in
which she had gazed into his own.

Could it be that though she had been engaged to the man she had never
taken delight in so g