er. It was not merely that he had loved once for all,
and, once deceived and forsaken, would love no more; but it was not for
him, a man of thirty years, to bow beneath the yoke of a girl of
eighteen--a child in everything except outward growth. Not for a moment
would he be imagined by her a courtier for her favor.

Thus, even in the heart of one so far above ordinary men as Godfrey,
and that in respect of the sweetest of child-maidens, pride had its
evil place; and no good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of
mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand. For
its sake this wise man was firmly resolved on caution; and so, when at
last they met, it was no more with that _abandon_ of simple pleasure
with which he had been wont to receive her when she came knocking at
the door of his study, bearing clear question or formless perplexity;
and his restraint would of itself have been enough to make Letty, whose
heart was now beating in a very thicket of nerves, at once feel it
impossible to carry out her intent--impossible to confess to him any
more than to his mother; while Godfrey, on his part, perceiving her
manifest shyness and unwonted embarrassment, attributed them altogether
to his own wisely guarded behavior, and, seeing therein no sign of loss
of influence, continued his caution. Thus the pride, which is of man,
mingled with the love, which is of God, and polluted it. From that hour
he began to lord it over the girl; and this change in his behavior
immediately reacted on himself, in the obscure perception that there
might be danger to her in continued freedom of intercourse: he must,
therefore, he concluded, order the way for both; he must take care of
her as well as of himself. But was it consistent with this resolve that
he should, for a whole month, spend every leisure moment in working at
a present for her--a written marvel of neatness and legibility?

Again, by this meeting askance, as it were, another disintegrating
force was called into operation: the moment Letty knew she could not
tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had arisen between him and her,
that moment woke in her the desire, as she had never felt it before, to
see Tom Helmer. She could no longer bear to be shut up in herself; she
must see somebody, get near to somebody, talk to somebody; her secret
would choke her otherwise, would swell and break her heart; and who was
there to think of but Tom--and Mary Marston?

She