r. She only shook her head mournfully.

"You cannot like me well enough for that?"

"It must not be so."

"Must not? Why must not?"

"It cannot be so."

"Then, Isabel, you must say that you do not love me."

"I need say nothing, Mr Owen." Again she smiled as she spoke to him.
"It is enough for me to say that it cannot be so. If I ask you not to
press me further, I am sure that you will not do so."

"I shall press you further," he said, as he left her; "but I will
leave you a week to think of it."

She took the week to think of it, and from day to day her mind would
change as she thought of it. Why should she not marry him, if thus
they might both be happy? Why should she cling to a resolution made
by her when she was in error as to the truth? She knew now, she was
now quite certain, that when he had first come to her he had known
nothing of her promised inheritance. He had come then simply because
he loved her, and for that reason, and for that reason only, he had
now come again. And yet--and yet, there was her resolution! And there
was the ground on which she had founded it! Though he might not
remember it now, would he not remember hereafter that she had refused
him when she was rich and accepted him when she was poor? Where then
would be her martyrdom, where her glory, where her pride? Were she to
do so, she would only do as would any other girl. Though she would
not have been mean, she would seem to have been mean, and would so
seem to his eyes. When the week was over she had told herself that
she must be true to her resolution.

There had been something said about him in the family, but very
little. The stepmother was indeed afraid of Isabel, though she had
endeavoured to conquer her own fear of using authority; and her
half-sisters, though they loved her, held her in awe. There was so
little that was weak about her, so little that was self-indulgent, so
little that was like the other girls around them! It was known that
Mr Owen was to come again on a certain day at a certain hour, and it
was known also for what purpose he was to come; but no one had dared
to ask a direct question as to the result of his coming.

He came, and on this occasion her firmness almost deserted her. When
he entered the room he seemed to her to be bigger than before, and
more like her master. As the idea that he was so fell upon her, she
became aware that she loved him better than ever. She began to know
that with such a look