e if you now will do as I ask you."

Of course she knew what it was that he was about to ask. When he had
left her at Longbarns without saying a word of his love, without
giving her any hint whereby she might allow herself to think that
he intended to renew his suit, then she had wept because it was so.
Though her resolution had been quite firm as to the duty which was
incumbent on her of remaining in her desolate condition of almost
nameless widowhood, yet she had been unable to refrain from bitter
tears because he also had seemed to see that such was her duty. But
now again, knowing that the request was coming, feeling once more
confident of the constancy of his love, she was urgent with herself
as to that heavy duty. She would be unwomanly, dead to all shame,
almost inhuman, were she to allow herself again to indulge in love
after all the havoc she had made. She had been little more than a
bride when that husband, for whom she had so often been forced to
blush, had been driven by the weight of his misfortunes and disgraces
to destroy himself! By the marriage she had made she had overwhelmed
her whole family with dishonour. She had done it with a persistency
of perverse self-will which she herself could not now look back upon
without wonder and horror. She, too, should have died as well as
he,--only that death had not been within the compass of her powers as
of his. How then could she forget it all, and wipe it away from her
mind, as she would figures from a slate with a wet towel? How could
it be fit that she should again be a bride with such a spectre of a
husband haunting her memory? She had known that the request was to be
made when he had come so quickly, and had not doubted it for a moment
when he took his sudden departure. She had known it well, when just
now the servant told her that Mr. Fletcher was in the drawing-room
below. But she was quite certain of the answer she must make. "I
should be sorry you should ask me anything I cannot do," she said in
a very low voice.

"I will ask you for nothing for which I have not your father's
sanction."

"The time has gone by, Arthur, in which I might well have been guided
by my father. There comes a time when personal feelings must be
stronger than a father's authority. Papa cannot see me with my own
eyes; he cannot understand what I feel. It is simply this,--that
he would have me to be other than I am. But I am what I have made
myself."

"You have not heard me as