s sweetened by the absolute devotion of the
young man who adored her, there were yet moments in which she felt like
Geoff that the position was becoming insupportable. Everything in her
life was turned upside down by this new element in it, which came
between her and her child, between her and her business, the work to
which she had so lately made up her mind to devote herself as to the
great object of her existence. All that was suspended now. When Theo was
with her, he would not brook, nor did she desire, any interruption; and
when he was not with her the bewildering thoughts that would rush upon
her, the questions in her mind as to what she ought to do, whether it
might not even now be better for everybody to break, if it was possible,
those engagements which brought so much agitation, which hindered
everything, which disturbed even the bond between herself and her child,
would sometimes almost destroy her moral balance altogether. And then
her young lover would arrive, and all the miseries and difficulties
would be forgotten, and it would seem as if earthly conditions and
circumstances had rolled away, and there were but these two in a new
life, a new world, where no troubles were. Then Lady Markland would
say to herself that it was the transition only that was painful, that
they were all in a false position, but that afterwards, when the
preliminaries were over and all accomplished, everything would be
well. When she was his, and he hers, beyond drawing back or doubt,
beyond the possibility of separation, then all that was over-anxious,
over-sensitive in Theo would settle down in the sober certainty of
happiness secured, and Geoff, who was so young, would reconcile himself
to that which would so soon appear the only natural condition of life,
and the new would seem as good, nay, better than the old. She trembled
herself upon the verge of the new, fearing any change and shrinking from
it as is natural for a woman, and yet in her heart felt that it would be
better this great change should come and be accomplished rather than to
look forward to it, to go through all its drawbacks, and pay its
penalties every day.

A few days after these incidents Theo came to Markland one morning with
brows more than usually cloudy. He had been annoyed about his house,
the improvements about which had been going on very slowly: one of his
tradespeople worse than another, the builder waiting for the architect,
the carpenter for the bui