at which he
was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the
fraud,--the sin had been with her,--and she knew it. Her life had
been destroyed,--but not by him. His life had also been destroyed,
and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his
people,--the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and
the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she
done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must
hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion
as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect
faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to
her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without
a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not
altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back
to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand,--with a
persistency which had driven him mad,--he had died; and now the place
was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there!

It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to
himself,--with an earnest belief in his own assertion,--that all the
joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such
conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had
said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had
certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was
banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name
that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see.
She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her.
All the joys of the world were over,--and had been lost by her own
fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her
husband was dead!

Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise
again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with a
gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young,--or young enough.
She was two and thirty, and had known many women,--women still
honoured with the name of girls,--who had commenced the world
successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had
told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own
engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through
vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world,
had returned to it, and had gone throug