be. You know what a hollow thing
conventional virtue is. Who are the virtuous people about you? Mrs.
Leith Fairfax, and her like. If you love me, you must know that you are
committing a crime against nature in living as you are with a man who is
as far removed from you in every human emotion as his workshop is from
heaven. You have striven to do your duty by him in vain. He is none the
happier: we are unutterably the more miserable. Let us try a new life. I
have lived in society here all my days, and have found its atmosphere
most worthless, most selfish, most impure. I want to be free--to shake
the dust of London off my feet, and enter on a life made holy by love.
You can respond to such an aspiration: you, too, must yearn for a pure
and free life. It is within our reach: you have but to stretch out your
hand. Say something to me. Are you listening?"

"It seems strange that I should be listening to you quite calmly, as I
am; although you are proposing what the world thinks a disgraceful
thing."

"Does it matter what the world thinks? I would not, even to save myself
from a wasted career, ask you to take a step that would really disgrace
you. But I cannot bear to think of you looking back some day over a
barren past, and knowing that you sacrificed your happiness to
Fashion--an idol. Do you remember last Sunday when we discussed that
bitter saying that women who have sacrificed their feelings to the laws
of society secretly know that they have been fools for their pains? _He_
did not deny it. You could give no good reason for disbelieving it. You
know it to be true; and I am only striving to save you from that vain
regret. You have shewn that you can obey the world with grace and
dignity when the world is right. Shew now that you can defy it
fearlessly when it is tyrannical. Trust your heart, Marian--my darling
Marian: trust your heart--and mine."

"For what hour have you ordered the carriage?"

"The carriage! Is that what you say to me at such a moment? Are you
still flippant as ever?"

"I am quite serious. Say no more now. If I go, I will go deliberately,
and not on the spur of your persuasion. I must have time to think. What
hour did you say?"

"Seven."

"Then it is time for me to dress. You will not mind waiting here alone?"

"If you would only give me one hopeful word, I think I could wait
happily forever."

"What can I say?"

"Say that you love me."

"I am striving to discover whether I have always