m
with pity.

"You should remember," he said, "how short a time it is since you became
a widow. Things will be different with you soon."

"My clothes will be different, if you mean that," she answered, "but I
do not know that there will be any other change in me. But I am wrong to
trouble you with all this. If you will let Mr. Courton's lawyer know,
with my compliments to Mrs. Courton, that I have heard that she would
like to have the place, and that I do not want it, I will be obliged to
you." Mr. Turnbull having by this time perceived that she was quite in
earnest, took his leave, having promised to do her bidding.

In this interview she had told her lawyer only a part of the plan which
was now running in her head. As for giving up Ongar Park, she took to
herself no merit for that. The place had been odious to her ever since
she had endeavored to establish herself there, and had found that the
clergyman's wife would not speak to her--that even her own housekeeper
would hardly condescend to hold converse with her. She felt that she
would be a dog in the manger to keep the place in her possession. But
she had thoughts beyond this--resolutions only as yet half formed as to
a wider surrender. She had disgraced herself, ruined herself; robbed
herself of all happiness by the marriage she had made. Her misery had
not been simply the misery of that lord's lifetime. As might have been
expected, that was soon over. But an enduring wretchedness had come
after that from which she saw no prospect of escape. What was to be her
future life, left as she was and would be, in desolation? If she were to
give it all up--all the wealth that had been so ill-gotten--might there
not then be some hope of comfort for her?

She had been willing enough to keep Lord Ongar's money, and use it for
the purposes of her own comfort, while she had still hoped that comfort
might come from it. The remembrance of all that she had to give had been
very pleasant to her, as long as she had hoped that Harry Clavering
would receive it at her hands. She had not at once felt that the fruit
had all turned to ashes. But now--now that Harry was gone from her--now
that she had no friend left to her whom she could hope to make happy by
her munificence, the very knowledge of her wealth was a burden to her.
And as she thought of her riches in these first days of her desertion,
as she had indeed been thinking since Cecilia Burton had been with her,
she came to under