o humiliating
that her mind resolutely rejected it; and she had no difficulty in
recalling numberless minutiae of behaviour--nuances of look and tone
such as abide in a woman's memory--any one of which would have sufficed
to persuade her that he felt genuine emotion. How had it come to pass
that a feeling of friendly interest, which did not for a moment
threaten her peace, changed all at once to an agitation only the more
persistent the more she tried to subdue it,--how, if it were not that
her heart responded to a passionate appeal, effectual as only the
sincerest love can prove? Prior to that long talk with Godwin, on the
eve of her departure for London, she had not imagined that he loved
her; when they said good-bye to each other, she knew by her own
sensations all that the parting meant to him. She felt glad, instead of
sorry, that they were not to meet again for several months; for she
wished to think of him calmly and prudently, now that he presented
himself to her imagination in so new an aspect. The hand-clasp was a
mutual assurance of fidelity.

'I should never have loved him, if he had not first loved me. Of that I
am as firmly convinced as of my own existence. It is not in my nature
to dream romances. I never did so even as a young girl, and at this age
I am not likely to fall into a foolish self-deception. I had often
thought about him. He seemed to me a man of higher and more complex
type than those with whom I was familiar; but most surely I never
attributed to him even a corresponding interest in me. I am neither
vain, nor very anxious to please; I never suffered because men did not
woo me; I have only moderate good looks, and certainly no uncommon
mental endowments.--If he had been attracted by Sylvia, I should have
thought it natural; and I more than once suspected that Sylvia was
disposed to like him. It seemed strange at first that his choice should
have fallen upon me; yet when I was far away from him, and longed so to
sit once more by him and hear him talk, I understood that it might be
in my power to afford him the companionship he needed.--Mercenary? If I
had been merely a governess in the house, he would have loved me just
the same!'

Only by a painful effort could she remind herself that the ideal which
had grown so slowly was now defaced. He loved her, but it was not the
love of an honest man. After all, she had no need to peruse this
writing of his; she remembered so well how it had impresse