ect,
an avowal that you rejected the idea of being a widow to prolong the idea
of being a wife; and the sin against your conventional state thus assumed
is almost as bad as would have been a sin against the married state
itself. If you had gone off when he died, saying, "Thank heaven, I am
free!" you would, at any rate, have shown some real honesty.'

'I should have been more virtuous by being more unfeeling. That often
happens.'

'I have taken to you, and made a great deal of you--given you the
inestimable advantages of foreign travel and good society to enlarge your
mind. In short, I have been like a Naomi to you in everything, and I
maintain that writing these poems saps the foundation of it all.'

'I do own that you have been a very good Naomi to me thus far; but Ruth
was quite a fast widow in comparison with me, and yet Naomi never blamed
her. You are unfortunate in your illustration. But it is dreadfully
flippant of me to answer you like this, for you have been kind. But why
will you provoke me!'

'Yes, you are flippant, Ethelberta. You are too much given to that sort
of thing.'

'Well, I don't know how the secret of my name has leaked out; and I am
not ribald, or anything you say,' said Ethelberta, with a sigh.

'Then you own you do not feel so ardent as you seem in your book?'

'I do own it.'

'And that you are sorry your name has been published in connection with
it?'

'I am.'

'And you think the verses may tend to misrepresent your character as a
gay and rapturous one, when it is not?'

'I do fear it.'

'Then, of course, you will suppress the poems instantly. That is the
only way in which you can regain the position you have hitherto held with
me.'

Ethelberta said nothing; and the dull winter atmosphere had far from
light enough in it to show by her face what she might be thinking.

'Well?' said Lady Petherwin.

'I did not expect such a command as that,' said Ethelberta. 'I have been
obedient for four years, and would continue so--but I cannot suppress the
poems. They are not mine now to suppress.'

'You must get them into your hands. Money will do it, I suppose?'

'Yes, I suppose it would--a thousand pounds.'

'Very well; the money shall be forthcoming,' said Lady Petherwin, after a
pause. 'You had better sit down and write about it at once.'

'I cannot do it,' said Ethelberta; 'and I will not. I don't wish them to
be suppressed. I am not ashamed of them; there is nothi