an agony.

"And you say the same?" she said, turning to Aldous.

"I cannot sign that petition," he said sadly. "Won't you try and believe
what it costs me to refuse?"

It was a heavy blow to her. Amply as she had been prepared for it, there
had always been at the bottom of her mind a persuasion that in the end
she would get her way. She had been used to feel barriers go down before
that ultimate power of personality of which she was abundantly
conscious. Yet it had not availed her here--not even with the man who
loved her.

Lord Maxwell looked at the two--the man's face of suffering, the girl's
struggling breath.

"There, there, Aldous!" he said, rising. "I will leave you a minute. Do
make Marcella rest--get her, for all our sakes, to forget this a little.
Bring her in presently to us for some coffee. Above all, persuade her
that we love her and admire her with all our hearts, but that in a
matter of this kind she must leave us to do--as before God!--what we
think right."

He stood before her an instant, gazing down upon her with dignity--nay,
a certain severity. Then he turned away and left the room.

Marcella sprang up.

"Will you order the carriage?" she said in a strangled voice. "I will go
upstairs."

"Marcella!" cried Aldous; "can you not be just to me, if it is
impossible for you to be generous?"

"Just!" she repeated, with a tone and gesture of repulsion, pushing him
back from her. "_You_ can talk of justice!"

He tried to speak, stammered, and failed. That strange paralysis of the
will-forces which dogs the man of reflection at the moment when he must
either take his world by storm or lose it was upon him now. He had never
loved her more passionately--but as he stood there looking at her,
something broke within him, the first prescience of the inevitable
dawned.

"_You_," she said again, walking stormily to and fro, and catching at
her breath--"_You_, in this house, with this life--to talk of
justice--the justice that comes of slaying a man like Hurd! And I must
go back to that cottage, to that woman, and tell her there is _no_
hope--none! Because _you_ must follow your conscience--you who have
everything! Oh! I would not have your conscience--I wish you a
heart--rather! Don't come to me, please! Oh! I must think how it can be.
Things cannot go on so. I should kill myself, and make you miserable.
But now I must go to _her_--to the _poor_--to those whom I _love_, whom
I carry in my heart!"

Sh