erhaps, hardly read them, and take what they do
read as meaning no more than half what is said. But Roger Carbury was
certainly not one of these. As he sat on the garden wall at Carbury,
with his cousin's letter in his hand, her words had their full weight
with him. He did not try to convince himself that all this was the
verbiage of an enthusiastic girl, who might soon be turned and trained
to another mode of thinking by fitting admonitions. To him now, as
he read and re-read Hetta's letter sitting on the wall, there was not
at any rate further hope for himself. Though he was altogether
unchanged himself, though he was altogether incapable of change,--
though he could not rally himself sufficiently to look forward to even
a passive enjoyment of life without the girl whom he had loved,--yet
he told himself what he believed to be the truth. At last he owned
directly and plainly that, whether happy or unhappy, he must do
without her. He had let time slip by with him too fast and too far
before he had ventured to love. He must now stomach his
disappointment, and make the best he could of such a broken,
ill-conditioned life as was left to him. But, if he acknowledged
this,--and he did acknowledge it,--in what fashion should he in future
treat the man and woman who had reduced him so low?

At this moment his mind was tuned to high thoughts. If it were
possible he would be unselfish. He could not, indeed, bring himself to
think with kindness of Paul Montague. He could not say to himself that
the man had not been treacherous to him, nor could he forgive the
man's supposed treason. But he did tell himself very plainly that in
comparison with Hetta the man was nothing to him. It could hardly be
worth his while to maintain a quarrel with the man if he were once
able to assure Hetta that she, as the wife of another man, should
still be dear to him as a friend might be dear. He was well aware that
such assurance, such forgiveness, must contain very much. If it were
to be so, Hetta's child must take the name of Carbury, and must be to
him as his heir,--as near as possible his own child. In her favour he
must throw aside that law of primogeniture which to him was so sacred
that he had been hitherto minded to make Sir Felix his heir in spite
of the absolute unfitness of the wretched young man. All this must be
changed, should he be able to persuade himself to give his consent to
the marriage. In such case Carbury must be the home of t