fit that a girl should trust
herself with a man. She had never thought that he had been such a one
as that, to ill-use her, to lay a hand on her in violence, to refuse
to take an answer. She threw herself on the bed and sobbed, and
then hid her face,--and was conscious that in spite of this acting
before herself she was the happiest girl alive. He had behaved very
badly;--of course, he had behaved most wickedly, and she would tell
him so some day. But was he not the dearest fellow living? Did ever
man speak with more absolute conviction of love in every tone of
his voice? Was it not the finest, noblest heart that ever throbbed
beneath a waistcoat? Had not his very wickedness come from the
overpowering truth of his affection for her? She would never quite
forgive him because it had been so very wrong; but she would be
true to him for ever and ever. Of course they could not marry.
What!--would she go to him and be a clog round his neck, and a weight
upon him for ever, bringing him down to the gutter by the burden of
her own useless and unworthy self? No. She would never so injure
him. She would not even hamper him by an engagement. But yet she
would be true to him. She had an idea that in spite of all her
protestations,--which, as she looked back upon them, appeared to her
to have been louder than they had been,--that through the teeth of
her denials, something of the truth had escaped from her. Well,--let
it be so. It was the truth, and why should he not know it? Then
she pictured to herself a long romance, in which the heroine lived
happily on the simple knowledge that she had been beloved. And
the reader may be sure that in this romance Mr. Glascock with his
splendid prospects filled one of the characters.

She had been so wretched at Nuncombe Putney when she had felt herself
constrained to admit to herself that this man for whom she had
sacrificed herself did not care for her, that she could not now but
enjoy her triumph. After she had sobbed upon the bed, she got up and
walked about the room smiling; and she would now press her hands to
her forehead, and then shake her tresses, and then clasp her own left
hand with her right, as though he were still holding it. Wicked man!
Why had he been so wicked and so violent? And why, why, why had she
not once felt his lips upon her brow?

And she was pleased with herself. Her sister had rebuked her because
she had refused to make her fortune by marrying Mr. Glascock; and,
to