if he loved the girl it was his duty as a man to prove
his love by doing what he could to make her happy. As he walked up and
down the walk by the moat, with his hands clasped behind his back,
stopping every now and again to sit on the terrace wall,--walking there,
mile after mile, with his mind intent on the one idea,--he schooled
himself to feel that that, and that only, could be his duty. What did
love mean if not that? What could be the devotion which men so often
affect to feel if it did not tend to self-sacrifice on behalf of the
beloved one? A man would incur any danger for a woman, would subject
himself to any toil,--would even die for her! But if this were done
simply with the object of winning her, where was that real love of
which sacrifice of self on behalf of another is the truest proof? So,
by degrees, he resolved that the thing must be done. The man, though
he had been bad to his friend, was not all bad. He was one who might
become good in good hands. He, Roger, was too firm of purpose and too
honest of heart to buoy himself up into new hopes by assurances of the
man's unfitness. What right had he to think that he could judge of that
better than the girl herself? And so, when many many miles had been
walked, he succeeded in conquering his own heart,--though in conquering
it he crushed it,--and in bringing himself to the resolve that the
energies of his life should be devoted to the task of making Mrs Paul
Montague a happy woman. We have seen how he acted up to this resolve
when last in London, withdrawing at any rate all signs of anger from
Paul Montague and behaving with the utmost tenderness to Hetta.

When he had accomplished that task of conquering his own heart and of
assuring himself thoroughly that Hetta was to become his rival's wife,
he was, I think, more at ease and less troubled in his spirit than he
had been during these months in which there had still been doubt. The
sort of happiness which he had once pictured to himself could
certainly never be his. That he would never marry he was quite sure.
Indeed he was prepared to settle Carbury on Hetta's eldest boy on
condition that such boy should take the old name. He would never have
a child whom he could in truth call his own. But if he could induce
these people to live at Carbury, or to live there for at least a part
of the year, so that there should be some life in the place, he
thought that he could awaken himself again, and again take an inte