urs
must go for nothing. Say that it shall be so, and I will forgive
everything.'

'I cannot say that,' he replied, laying his hand on hers.

'You cannot say it! What do you mean? Will you dare to tell me that
your promises to me are to go for nothing?'

'Things are changed,' said Paul hoarsely. He had come thither at her
bidding because he had felt that to remain away would be cowardly, but
the meeting was inexpressibly painful to him. He did think that he had
sufficient excuse for breaking his troth to this woman, but the
justification of his conduct was founded on reasons which he hardly
knew how to plead to her. He had heard that of her past life which,
had he heard it before, would have saved him from his present
difficulty. But he had loved her,--did love her in a certain fashion;
and her offences, such as they were, did not debar her from his
sympathies.

'How are they changed? I am two years older, if you mean that.' As she
said this she looked round at the glass, as though to see whether she
was become so haggard with age as to be unfit to become this man's
wife. She was very lovely, with a kind of beauty which we seldom see
now. In these days men regard the form and outward lines of a woman's
face and figure more than either the colour or the expression, and
women fit themselves to men's eyes. With padding and false hair
without limit a figure may be constructed of almost any dimensions.
The sculptors who construct them, male and female, hairdressers and
milliners, are very skilful, and figures are constructed of noble
dimensions, sometimes with voluptuous expansion, sometimes with
classic reticence, sometimes with dishevelled negligence which becomes
very dishevelled indeed when long out of the sculptor's hands. Colours
indeed are added, but not the colours which we used to love. The taste
for flesh and blood has for the day given place to an appetite for
horsehair and pearl powder. But Mrs Hurtle was not a beauty after the
present fashion. She was very dark,--a dark brunette,--with large round
blue eyes, that could indeed be soft, but could also be very severe.
Her silken hair, almost black, hung in a thousand curls all round her
head and neck. Her cheeks and lips and neck were full, and the blood
would come and go, giving a varying expression to her face with almost
every word she spoke. Her nose also was full, and had something of the
pug. But nevertheless it was a nose which any man who loved her wou