s round my neck, after all. I rushed away with hardly
a word, and walked and walked, and thought and thought. The next day
comes a note from her--what one would call a manly, straightforward
acknowledgment that she had led me into a position that was an unfair
one, and that she regretted it. Nothing franker or more generous could
have been conceived, but somehow it roused within me the impulse to
make her conscious of the weakness of her sex. My masculine conceit
rose and demanded an opportunity of self-assertion. I went to her,
and she seemed more attractive than ever. Her independence and
self-reliance nettled me, and I was mean enough to yield to the desire
to see if she could resist me. But I was richly punished, for the
knowledge rolled over me like a wave that she loved me, and I left
her, stung by the consciousness of having taken an unworthy advantage
of a simple and trustful nature. I know that this is high tragedy, and
will meet with your displeasure. I can hear you say, "Confound you,
Harry! why don't you marry her?"

Very easy to say; but look at the situation, which is not so simple
as you probably think. Of course any girl of my own class would never
build an edifice of eternal and sacred happiness on such a foundation
as a few warm looks and eloquent words, or even a caress, might
furnish. In plain words, neither she nor I would think marriage
a necessary or even likely sequence to such a preamble. But it is
different with Miss Linton. I am sure, I am confident--laugh if you
like--that she has never given any man what she has given me, either
in degree or kind. Her eccentric notions about women's nature and
position would protect her from tampering with her own feelings or
those of another; and then, too, there has been so much hard reality,
so much serious business, in her life that the sweet follies of
girlhood have not been hers. Shall I say that I cannot help feeling
her innocence and inexperience make her more attractive? I am
not sure, even, that they do not balance her self-reliance and
independence, which certainly repel me. All this I did not dream of
at first. I am not a scoundrel or a coxcomb. It came to me the other
afternoon all at once, when she threw her arms about my neck. I have
been selfish, and perhaps stupid. "Why not marry her?" you say. I have
asked myself that question, and this is my answer: No passion in the
world could make me insensible to the humiliation of her career, and I
s