twynde, and the mistress of
Chetwynde Castle. You can fill the place with guests, among whom you
will be queen. You may go to London during the season, take the
position to which you are entitled there as wife of a peer, and, in
the best society which the world affords, you will receive all the
admiration and homage which you deserve. Beauty like yours, combined
with rank and wealth, may make you a queen of society. Have you
strength to forego all this, Zillah?"

"You have left one thing out in your brilliant picture," replied
Zillah. "All this may, indeed, be mine--but--mine on sufferance. If I
can only get this as Lord Chetwynde's wife, I beg leave to decline
it. Besides, I have no ambition to shine in society. Had you urged me
to remember all that the Earl has done for me, and try to endure the
son for the sake of the father, that might possibly have had weight.
Had you shown me that my marriage was irrevocable, and that the best
thing was to accept the situation, and try to be a dutiful wife to
the son of the man whom I called father, you might perhaps for a
moment have shaken my pride. I might have stifled the promptings of
those womanly instincts which have been so frightfully outraged, and
consented to remain passively in a situation where I was placed by
those two friends who loved me best. But when you speak to me of the
dazzling future which may lie before me as Lord Chetwynde's wife, you
remind me how little he is dependent for happiness upon any thing
that I can give him; of the brilliant career in society or in
politics which is open to him, and which will render domestic life
superfluous. I have thought over all this most fully; but what you
have just said has thrown a new light upon it. In the quiet seclusion
in which I have hitherto lived I had almost forgotten that there was
an outside world, where men seek their happiness. Can you think that
I am able to enter that world, and strive to be a queen of society,
with no protecting love around me to warn me against its perils or to
shield me from them? No! I see it all. Under no circumstances can I
live with this man who abhors me. No toleration can be possible on
either side. The best thing for me to do is to die. But since I can
not die, the next best thing is to sink out of his view into
nothingness. So, Hilda, I shall leave Chetwynde, and it is useless to
attempt to dissuade me."

Zillah had spoken in low, measured tones, in words which were so
forma