He Knew He Was Right

evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had been many moments of regret with Nora;⁠—but none of remorse. At the very moment in which she had sent Mr. Glascock away from her, and had felt that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of regret. Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought of her own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to convince herself that she could never fitly become a poor man’s wife. But the upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done, and a strong resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for her husband if he required it. It had been given her to choose, and she had chosen. She had found herself unable to tell a man that she loved him when she did not love him⁠—and equally unable to conceal the love which she did feel. “If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about the street, I’d marry him tomorrow,” she said to her sister one afternoon as they were sitting together in the room which ought to have been their uncle’s study.

“If he wheeled a big barrow, you’d have to wheel a little one,” said her sister.

“Then I’d do it. I shouldn’t mind. There has been this advantage in St. Diddulph’s, that nothing can be triste, nothing dull, nothing ugly after it.”

“It may be so with you, Nora;⁠—that is in imagination.”

“What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never could have learned in Curzon Street. I used to think myself such a fine young woman⁠—but, upon my word, I think myself a finer one now.”

“I don’t quite know what you mean.”

“I don’t quite know myself; but I nearly know. I do know this, that I’ve made up my own mind about what I mean to do.”

“You’ll change it, dear, when mamma is here, and things are comfortable again. It’s my belief that Mr. Glascock would come to you again tomorrow if you would let him.” Mrs. Trevelyan was, naturally, in complete ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence which Mr. Glascock had encountered in Italy.

“But I certainly should not let him. How would it be possible after what I wrote to Hugh?”

“All that might pass away,” said Mrs. Trevelyan⁠—slowly, after a long pause.

“All what might pass away? Have I not given him a distinct promise? Have I not told him that I loved him, and sworn that I would be true to him? Can that be made to pass away⁠—even if one wished it?”

“Of course it can. Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood at the altar with a man and been made his wife. You may choose still. I can never choose again.”

“I never will, at any rate,” said Nora.

Then there was another pause. “It seems strange to me, Nora,” said the elder sister, “that after what you have seen you should be so keen to be married to anyone.”

“What is a girl to do?”

“Better drown herself than do as I have done. Only think what there is before me. What I have gone through is nothing to it. Of course I must go back to the Islands. Where else am I to live? Who else will take me?”

“Come to us,” said Nora.

“Us, Nora! Who are the us? But in no way would that be possible. Papa will be here, perhaps, for six months.” Nora thought it quite possible that she might have a home of her own before six months were passed⁠—even though she might be wheeling the smaller barrow⁠—but she would not say so. “And by that time everything must be decided.”

“I suppose it must.”

“Of course papa and mamma must go back,” said Mrs. Trevelyan.

“Papa might take a pension. He’s entitled to a pension now.”

“He’ll never do that as long as he can have employment. They’ll go back, and I must go with them. Who else would take me in?”

“I know who would take you in, Emily.”

“My darling, that is romance. As for myself, I should not care where I went. If it were even to remain here, I could bear it.”

“I could not,” said Nora, decisively.

“It is so different with you, dear. I don’t suppose it is possible I should take my boy with me to the Islands; and how⁠—am I⁠—to go⁠—anywhere⁠—without him?” Then she broke down, and fell into a paroxysm of sobs, and was in very truth a brokenhearted woman.

Nora was silent for some minutes, but at last she spoke. “Why do you not go back to him, Emily?”

“How am I to go back to him? What am I to do to make him take me back?” At this very moment Trevelyan was in the house, but they did not know it.

“Write to him,” said Nora.

“What am I to say? In very truth I do believe that he is mad. If I write to him, should I defend myself or accuse myself? A dozen times I have striven to write such a letter⁠—not that I might send it, but that I might find what I could say should I ever wish to send it. And it is impossible. I can only tell him how unjust he has been, how cruel, how mad, how wicked!”

“Could you not say to him simply this?⁠—‘Let us be together, wherever it may be; and let bygones be bygones.’ ”

“While he is watching me with a policeman? While he is still thinking that I entertain a⁠—lover? While he believes that I am the base thing that he has dared to think me?”

“He has never believed it.”

“Then how can he be such a villain as to treat me like this? I could not go to him, Nora;⁠—not unless I went to him as one who was known to be mad, over whom in his wretched condition it would be my duty to keep watch. In no other way could I overcome my abhorrence of the outrages to