your
chances of happiness are no better than my own, even though you have
paid a dishonourable price for them." And I hated her after that.

CHAPTER IX.

The winter was passing away at this time, and spring days were beginning
to shine. I walked out of my bed-room into the bright March world and
saw the primroses laughing in the hollows. I thought my heart broke
outright when I heard the first lark begin to sing. After that things
went still further wrong. John came to take me out for a drive one day,
and I would not go. And the Tyrrells were staying at the Hall.

Whether it was that Rachel shunned me of her own wish, or because she
saw that I had learned to despise her, I do not know; but we kept apart.
My poor soul was quite adrift. Anguish for the past, disgust at the
present, terror of the future, all weighed on it. If I had known of any
convent of saintly nuns, such as I had read of in poems and legends, who
took the weary in at their door and healed the sick, who would have
preached to me, prayed with me, let me sit at their feet and weep at
their knees till I had struggled through this dark phase of my life, I
would have got up and fled to them in the night, and left no trace
behind me.

I hated to stay at the Hall, and yet I stayed. Mr. Hill--kind
heart!--said he would bar the gates, and set on the dogs if I attempted
to move. He and his wife both fancied at this time to make a pet of me.
I had been ill in their house, and I must get well in their house. They
would warrant to make the time pleasant. So the Tyrrells were bidden to
come and stay a month. Grace Tyrrell arrived with her high spirits, her
frivolity, her odour of the world, took me in her hands, and placed
herself at once between me and Rachel. She found me weak, irritable,
wobegone. She questioned, petted, coaxed. Partly through curiosity, and
partly through good-nature, she tried to win my confidence, and in an
evil hour I told her all my trouble. I listened to her censure, scoffs,
counsels, and my heart turned to steel against John.

She was older than me by five or six years. I was a good little simple
babe, she said, but she, she knew the world. It was only in story books,
or by younglings like me that lovers were expected to be true. Miss
Leonard was an "old flame," and, if all that was said might be true,
would be heiress of Hillsbro'. Yes, yes, she knew; I need not blaze out.
I had made myself a hero, as simple hearts do, but my i