me, as she had never
before been, spiritually tormented and restless. The thought framed
itself that Charlotte and Wilfrid were not, by any law of selection, to
match. What mattered it? Simply that it in some way seemed to increase
the merits of one of the two. The task, moreover, of avoiding to tease
her brother was made easier to her by flying to this new refuge of
mysterious reflection. At times she poured back the whole flood of her
heart upon Merthyr, and then in alarm at the host of little passions
that grew cravingly alive in her, she turned her thoughts to Wilfrid
again; and so, till they turned wittingly to him. That this host of
little passions will invariably surround a false great one, she learnt
by degrees, by having to quell them and rise out of them. She knew that
now she occasionally forced her passion for Merthyr; but what nothing
could teach her was, that she did so to eject another's image. On the
contrary, her confession would have been: "Voluntarily I dwell upon that
other, that my love for Merthyr may avoid excess." To such a state of
clearness much self-questioning brought her: but her blood was as yet
unwarmed; and that is a condition fostering self-deception as much as
when it rages.

Madame Marini wrote to ask whether Emilia might receive the visits of
a Sir Purcell Barrett, whom they had met, and whom Emilia called her
friend; adding: "The other gentleman has called at our old lodgings
three times. The last time our landlady says, he wept. Is it an
Englishman, really?"

Merthyr laughed at this, remarking: "Charlotte is not so vigilant, after
all."

"He wept." Georgiana thought and remembered the cold self-command that
his face had shown when Emilia claimed him, and his sole reply was, "I
am engaged to this lady," designating Lady Charlotte. Now, too, some
of Emilia's phrases took life in her memory. She studied them, thinking
over them, as if a voice of nature had spoken. Less and less it seemed
to her that a woman need feel shame to utter them. She interpreted this
as her growth of charity for a girl so violently stricken with love.
"In such a case, the more she says the more is she to be excused; for
nothing but a frenzy of passion could move her to speak so," thought
Georgiana. Accepting the words, and sanctioning the passion, the person
of him who had inspired it stood magnified in its light. She believed
that if he had played with the girl, he repented, and the idea of a man
shedding