a deep
conviction that the time would come one day when he would know what
was on her mind. He was patient. He could wait. So the time went on.

As the time passed the life at Chetwynde Castle became more and more
grateful to Zillah. Naturally affectionate, her heart had softened
under its new trials and experiences, and there was full chance for
the growth of those kindly and generous emotions which, after all,
were most natural and congenial to her. In addition to her own
affection for the Earl and for Mrs. Hart, she found a constraint on
her here which she had not known while living the life of a spoiled
and indulged child in her own former home. The sorrow through which
she had passed had made her less childish. The Earl began in reality
to seem to her like a second father, one whom she could both revere
and love.

Very soon after her first acquaintance with him she found out that by
no possibility could he be a party to any thing dishonorable. Finding
thus that her first suspicions were utterly unfounded, she began to
think it possible that her marriage, though odious in itself, had
been planned with a good intent. To think Lord Chetwynde mercenary
was impossible. His character was so high-toned, and even so
punctilious in its regard to nice points of honor, that he was not
even worldly wise. With the mode in which her marriage had been
finally carried out he had clearly nothing whatever to do. Of all her
suspicions, her anger against an innocent and noble-minded man, and
her treatment of him on his first visit to Pomeroy Court, she now
felt thoroughly ashamed. She longed to tell him all about it--to
explain why it was that she had felt so and done so--and waited for
some favorable opportunity for making her confession.

At length an opportunity occurred. One day the Earl was speaking of
her father, and he told Zillah about his return to England, and his
visit to Chetwynde Castle; and finally told how the whole arrangement
had been made between them by which she had become Guy's wife. He
spoke with such deep affection about General Pomeroy, and so
feelingly of his intense love for his daughter, that at last Zillah
began to understand perfectly the motives of the actors in this
matter. She saw that in the whole affair, from first to last, there
was nothing but the fondest thought of herself, and that the very
money itself, which she used to think had "purchased her," was in
some sort an investment for her own be