ate the
injury I have done you,--or even to undergo retribution for
it,--I would do so. But what compensation can be given, or what
retribution can you exact? I think that our further meeting can
avail nothing. But if, after this, you wish me to come again, I
will come for the last time,--because I have promised.

Your most sincere friend,

PAUL MONTAGUE.

Mrs Hurtle, as she read this, was torn in two ways. All that Paul had
written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap
of paper which she still kept in her own pocket. Those words, fairly
transcribed on a sheet of note-paper, would be the most generous and
the fittest answer she could give. And she longed to be generous. She
had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself. But the
sacrifice which would have been most to her taste would have been of
another kind. Had she found him ruined and penniless she would have
delighted to share with him all that she possessed. Had she found him
a cripple, or blind, or miserably struck with some disease, she would
have stayed by him and have nursed him and given him comfort. Even had
he been disgraced she would have fled with him to some far country and
have pardoned all his faults. No sacrifice would have been too much
for her that would have been accompanied by a feeling that he
appreciated all that she was doing for him, and that she was loved in
return. But to sacrifice herself by going away and never more being
heard of, was too much for her! What woman can endure such sacrifice
as that? To give up not only her love, but her wrath also;--that was too
much for her! The idea of being tame was terrible to her. Her life had
not been very prosperous, but she was what she was because she had
dared to protect herself by her own spirit. Now, at last, should she
succumb and be trodden on like a worm? Should she be weaker even than
an English girl? Should she allow him to have amused himself with her
love, to have had 'a good time,' and then to roam away like a bee,
while she was so dreadfully scorched, so mutilated and punished! Had
not her whole life been opposed to the theory of such passive
endurance? She took out the scrap of paper and read it; and, in spite
of all, she felt that there was a feminine softness in it that
gratified her.

But no;--she could not send it. She could not even copy the words. And
so she gave play to all her strongest feelings on the other side,--
b