wn
future conduct, he had been much nobler than his friends. He had
never hesitated for a moment as to the value of Lucy Morris. She
was not beautiful. She had no wonderful gifts of nature. There was
nothing of a goddess about her. She was absolutely penniless. She had
never been what the world calls well-dressed. And yet she had been
everything to him. There had grown up a sympathy between them quite
as strong on his part as on hers, and he had acknowledged it to
himself. He had never doubted his own love,--and when he had been
most near to convincing himself that in his peculiar position he
ought to marry his rich cousin, because of her wealth, then, at those
moments, he had most strongly felt that to have Lucy Morris close to
him was the greatest charm in existence. Hitherto his cousin's money,
joined to flatteries and caresses,--which, if a young man can resist,
he is almost more than a young man,--had tempted him; but he had
combated the temptation. On one memorable evening his love for Lucy
had tempted him. To that temptation he had yielded, and the letter by
which he became engaged to her had been written. He had never meant
to evade it;--had always told himself that it should not be evaded;
but, gradually, days had been added to days, and months to months,
and he had allowed her to languish without seeing him, and almost
without hearing from him.

She, too, had heard from all sides that she was deserted by him, and
she had written to him to give him back his troth; but she had not
sent her letters. She did not doubt that the thing was over,--she
hardly doubted. And yet she would not send any letter. Perhaps it
would be better that the matter should be allowed to drop without any
letter-writing. She would never reproach him,--though she would ever
think him to be a traitor. Would not she have starved herself for
him, could she so have served him? And yet he could bear for her sake
no touch of delay in his prosperity! Would she not have been content
to wait, and always to wait,--so that he with some word of love would
have told her that he waited also? But he would not only desert
her,--but would give himself to that false, infamous woman, who was
so wholly unfitted to be his wife. For Lucy, though to herself she
would call him a traitor,--and would think him to be a traitor, still
regarded him as the best of mankind, as one who, in marrying such a
one as Lizzie Eustace, would destroy all his excellence, as a man