ll it to you, you will find that it
provides a key to all that is unusual in my life here. He bade me
consider what my position would be when he was gone; hoped that I should
remember what was due to him,--that I would not so behave towards other
men as to bring the name of Constantine into suspicion; and charged me to
avoid levity of conduct in attending any ball, rout, or dinner to which I
might be invited. I, in some contempt for his low opinion of me,
volunteered, there and then, to live like a cloistered nun during his
absence; to go into no society whatever,--scarce even to a neighbour's
dinner-party; and demanded bitterly if that would satisfy him. He said
yes, held me to my word, and gave me no loophole for retracting it. The
inevitable fruits of precipitancy have resulted to me: my life has become
a burden. I get such invitations as these' (holding up the cards), 'but
I so invariably refuse them that they are getting very rare. . . . I ask
you, can I honestly break that promise to my husband?'

Mr. Torkingham seemed embarrassed. 'If you promised Sir Blount
Constantine to live in solitude till he comes back, you are, it seems to
me, bound by that promise. I fear that the wish to be released from your
engagement is to some extent a reason why it should be kept. But your
own conscience would surely be the best guide, Lady Constantine?'

'My conscience is quite bewildered with its responsibilities,' she
continued, with a sigh. 'Yet it certainly does sometimes say to me
that--that I ought to keep my word. Very well; I must go on as I am
going, I suppose.'

'If you respect a vow, I think you must respect your own,' said the
parson, acquiring some further firmness. 'Had it been wrung from you by
compulsion, moral or physical, it would have been open to you to break
it. But as you proposed a vow when your husband only required a good
intention, I think you ought to adhere to it; or what is the pride worth
that led you to offer it?'

'Very well,' she said, with resignation. 'But it was quite a work of
supererogation on my part.'

'That you proposed it in a supererogatory spirit does not lessen your
obligation, having once put yourself under that obligation. St. Paul, in
his Epistle to the Hebrews, says, "An oath for confirmation is an end of
all strife." And you will readily recall the words of Ecclesiastes, "Pay
that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow
than that thou sh