face
of resigned woe and the censure of an ever implied rebuke in her voice
and manner.

Only the vicar took her part somewhat. "Let her alone," he said,
sometimes, to his wife and mother; "she must have had a better reason
than we any of us know of; the girl is suffering quite enough--leave her
alone."

And she was suffering. The life that she had doomed herself to was almost
unbearable to her. The everlasting round of parish work and parish talk,
the poor people and the coal-clubs--it was what she had come back to. She
had been lifted for a short time out of it all, and a new life, congenial
to her tastes and to her nature, had opened out before her; and yet with
her own hands she had shut the door upon this brighter prospect, and had
left herself out in the darkness, to go back to that life of dull
monotony which she hated.

And what had she gained by it? What single advantage had she reaped
out of her sacrificed life? Was Maurice any nearer to her--was he not
hopelessly divided from her--helplessly out of her reach? She knew
nothing of him, no word concerning him reached her ears: a great blank
was before her. When she went over the past again and again in her mind,
she could not well see what good thing could ever come to her from what
she had done. There were moments indeed when the whole story of her
broken engagement seemed to her like the wild delusion of madness. She
had had no intention of acknowledging her love to Maurice when she had
gone up to the station to see him off; she had only meant to see him
once more, to hold his hand for one instant, to speak a few kind words;
to wish him God speed. She asked herself now what had possessed her that
she had not been able to preserve the self-control of affectionate
friendship when the unfortunate accident of her being taken on in the
train with him had left her entirely alone in his society. She did not
go the length of regretting what she had done for his sake; but she did
acknowledge to herself that she had been led away by the magnetism of his
presence and by the strange and unexpected chance which had thus left her
alone with him into saying and doing things which in a calmer moment she
would not have been betrayed into.

For a few kisses--for the joy of telling him that his love was
returned--for a short moment of delirious and transient happiness, and
alas! for nothing more--she had thrown away her life!

She had behaved hardly and cruelly to a good m