ones of his voice linger in the rooms where she sat? Could she not
see him enter, hold to her his hand, bend and kiss her? Did she not
fancy constantly that his foot sounded on the floor above her, up in the
bare little room, where she had parted from him unkindly? Why, death
meant but little, for at any moment he was in truth standing by her.
Years of unhappiness, and then to be put aside and forgotten as soon as
the heavy clods of earth had fallen upon him? To think of that was to be
driven almost to madness by the impotence of grief. Rather than allow a
joy to tempt her thought, she would cast life from her and be his
companion in that narrow home.

And her character brought it about that the very strength of her love
for Wilfrid acted as another impulse to renunciation. Which had been the
stronger motive in her refusal to sacrifice herself--the preservation of
her chaste womanhood, or the inability to give up him she loved? Could
she, at the tribunal of her conscience, affirm that her decision had
held no mixture of the less pure? Nay, had she not known that revolt of
self in which she had maintained that the individual love was supreme,
that no title of inferiority became it? She saw now more clearly than
then the impossibility of distinguishing those two motives, or of
weighing the higher and the lower elements of her love. One way there
was, and one way only, of proving to herself that she had not fallen
below the worthiness which purest love demanded, that she had indeed
offered to Wilfrid a soul whose life was chastity--and that must be
utterly to renounce love's earthly reward, and in spirit to be faithful
to him while her life lasted. The pain of such renunciation was twofold,
for did she not visit him with equal affliction? Had she the right to do
that? The question was importunate, and she held it a temptation of her
weaker self. Wilfrid would bear with her. He was of noble nature, and
her mere assurance of a supreme duty would outweigh his personal
suffering. On him lay no obligation of faithfulness to his first love; a
man, with the world before him, he would, as was right, find another to
share his life. To think that was no light test of steadfastness in
Emily the image of Wilfrid loving and loved by another woman wrung the
sinews of her heart. That she must keep from her mind; that was more
than her strength could face and conquer. It should be enough to love
him for ever, without hope, without desire.