whole story. Adela, however, would tell her nothing, would say no
more about herself. In the agony of her strong feeling she had once
pointed to herself as a beacon; but even she herself could not endure
to do this again. She would say nothing further about that; but in
a more plaintive and softer tone she did not cease to implore her
friend not to throw away from her the rich heart which was still
within her grasp.

A scene such as this could not but have an effect on Caroline; but
it did not ultimately have that which Adela had wished. It was Miss
Waddington's doctrine that she should not under any circumstances of
life permit herself to be carried away by passion. Why then should
she allow Adela's passion to convince her? What were the facts? Of
Adela's own case she knew nothing. It might be that she had been
cruelly treated. Her friends, her lover, or even she herself might
have been in fault. But it would surely be the extreme of folly
for her, Caroline Waddington, to allow herself to be actuated by
the example of one who had not even shown her of what that example
consisted.

The upshot of it all was, that at the end of the week she wrote to
George, declaring that, grieved as she was to grieve him, she felt
herself obliged to adhere to her former resolution. She also wrote
strongly, and perhaps with more force of logic than her lover
had done. "I trust the time will come," she said, "when you will
acknowledge that I have been right. But of this I am quite sure, that
were I now to yield to you, the time would come very quickly when you
would acknowledge me to have been wrong; and that you should then
think me to have been wrong would kill me. I am not, I know, fitted,
either by disposition or education, to be a poor man's wife. I say
this with no pride; though if you choose to take it for pride, I
cannot help myself. Nor are you fitted to be the husband of a poor
wife. Your love and enthusiasm now make you look on want as a slight
evil; but have you ever tried want? Since you left school, have you
not had everything that money could buy you? Have you ever been
called on to deny yourself any reasonable wish? Never, I believe. Nor
have I. What right have we then to suppose that we can do that for
each other which we have never yet done for ourselves?

"You talk of the misery of waiting. Is it not because you have as yet
known no misery? Have not all men to wait who look for success in
life?--to work, and wait, a