go to
Monkhams. You will find that I shall manage it. It may be that I
shall do something very shocking,--so that all your patronage will
hardly be able to bring me round afterwards; but I will do something
that will serve my purpose. I have not gone so far as this to be
turned back now." Nora, as she spoke of having "gone so far," was
looking at Mr. Glascock, who was seated in an easy arm-chair close
to the girl whom he was to make his wife on the morrow, and she
was thinking, no doubt, of the visit which he had made to Nuncombe
Putney, and of the first irretrievable step which she had taken when
she told him that her love was given to another. That had been her
Rubicon. And though there had been periods with her since the passing
of it, in which she had felt that she had crossed it in vain, that
she had thrown away the splendid security of the other bank without
obtaining the perilous object of her ambition,--though there had been
moments in which she had almost regretted her own courage and noble
action, still, having passed the river, there was nothing for her
but to go on to Rome. She was not going to be stopped now by the
want of a house in which to hide herself for a few weeks. She was
without money, except so much as her mother might be able, almost
surreptitiously, to give her. She was without friends to help
her,--except these who were now with her, whose friendship had come
to her in so singular a manner, and whose power to aid her at the
present moment was cruelly curtailed by their own circumstances.
Nothing was settled as to her own marriage. In consequence of
the promise that had been extorted from her that she should not
correspond with Stanbury, she knew nothing of his present wishes or
intention. Her father was so offended by her firmness that he would
hardly speak to her. And it was evident to her that her mother,
though disposed to yield, was still in hopes that her daughter, in
the press and difficulty of the moment, would allow herself to be
carried away with the rest of the family to the other side of the
world. She knew all this,--but she had made up her mind that she
would not be carried away. It was not very pleasant, the thought that
she would be obliged at last to ask her young man, as she called
him, to provide for her; but she would do that and trust herself
altogether in his hands sooner than be taken to the Antipodes. "I
can be very resolute if I please, my dear," she said, looking at
Ca