nts hung about him all day, whether in the House of
Commons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legs
at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the Government
Bill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in
the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and Harry
Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power.

A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either of
his--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. A
touching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted
him.

"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It
might be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you will
not--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It is
only quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I did
last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--or
another's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Why
perfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion of
questioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is so
fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow my
nature.

"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your
'cause,' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longer
accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters
infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a
friend 'in everything except opinion.' All that would matter to me now
would be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in your
public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might
differ from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just my
difficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you
talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can
with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk
their language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accept
their standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought I
could give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weaker
than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength,
pure at the core, that I can respect and follow.

"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the
best of whom life is very real and simple--and often,