The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXIII

MISS LILY DALE’S RES­OLU­TION

The ladies at the Small House at Alling­ton break­fast­ed al­ways at nine–a lib­er­al nine; and the post­man whose du­ty it was to de­liv­er let­ters in that vil­lage at half-​past eight, be­ing al­so lib­er­al in his ideas as to time, al­ways ar­rived punc­tu­al­ly in the mid­dle of break­fast, so that Mrs Dale ex­pect­ed her let­ters, and Lily hers, just be­fore the sec­ond cup of tea, as though the let­ters formed a part of the morn­ing meal. Jane, the maid­ser­vant, al­ways brought them in, and hand­ed them to Mrs Dale–for Lily had in these days come to pre­side at the break­fast ta­ble; and then there would be an ex­am­ina­tion of the out­sides be­fore the en­velopes were vi­olat­ed, and as each par­ty knew pret­ty well the cir­cum­stances of the cor­re­spon­dence of the oth­er, there would be some guess­ing as to what this or that epis­tle might con­tain; and af­ter that a read­ing out loud of pas­sages, and not un­fre­quent­ly the en­tire let­ter. But now, at the time of which I am speak­ing, Grace Craw­ley was at the Small House, and there­fore the com­mon prac­tice was some­what in abeyance.

On one of the first days of the new year Jane brought in the let­ters as usu­al, and hand­ed them to Mrs Dale. Lily was at the time oc­cu­pied with the teapot, but still she saw the let­ters, and had not her hands so full as to be de­barred from the ex­pres­sion of her usu­al anx­iety. ‘Mam­ma, I’m sure I see two there for me,’ she said. ‘On­ly one for you, Lily,’ said Mrs Dale. Lily in­stant­ly knew from the tone of the voice that some let­ter had come, which by the very as­pect of the hand­writ­ing had dis­turb­ing her moth­er. ‘There is one for you, my dear,’ said Mrs Dale, throw­ing a let­ter across the ta­ble to Grace. ‘And one for you, Lily, from Bell. The oth­ers are for me.’ ‘And whom are you yours from, mam­ma?’ asked Lily. ‘One is from Mrs Jones; and the oth­er, I think, is a let­ter on busi­ness.’ Then Lily said noth­ing fur­ther, but she ob­served that her moth­er on­ly opened one of her let­ters at the break­fast-​ta­ble. Lily was very pa­tient;–not by na­ture, I think, but by ex­er­cise and prac­tice. She had, once in her life, been too much in a hur­ry; and hav­ing then burned her­self grievous­ly, she now feared the fire. She did not there­fore fol­low her moth­er af­ter break­fast, but sat with Grace over the fire, hem­ming dili­gent­ly at cer­tain ar­ti­cles of cloth­ing which were in­tend­ed for use in the Hog­gle­stock par­son­age. The two girls were mak­ing a set of new shirts for Mr Craw­ley. ‘But I know he will ask where they come from,’ said Grace; ‘and then mam­ma will be scold­ed.’ ‘But I hope he’ll wear them,’ said Lily. ‘Soon­er of lat­er he will,’ said Grace; ‘be­cause mam­ma man­ages gen­er­al­ly to have her way at last.’ Then they went on for an hour or so, talk­ing about the home af­fairs at Hog­gle­stock. But dur­ing the whole time Lily’s mind was in­tent up­on her moth­er’s let­ter.

Noth­ing was said about it at lunch, and noth­ing when they walked out af­ter lunch, for Lily was very pa­tient. But dur­ing the walk Mrs Dale be­came aware that her daugh­ter was un­easy. These two watched each oth­er un­con­scious­ly with a close­ness which hard­ly al­lowed a glance of the eye, cer­tain­ly not a tone of the voice, to pass un­ob­served. To Mrs Dale it was ev­ery­thing in the world that her daugh­ter should be, if not hap­py at heart, at least tran­quil; and to Lily, who knew that her moth­er was al­ways think­ing of her, and of her alone, her moth­er was the on­ly hu­man di­vin­ity now wor­thy of ado­ra­tion. But noth­ing was said about the let­ter dur­ing the walk.

When they came home it was near­ly dusk, and it was their habit to sit up for a while with­out can­dles, talk­ing, till the evening had in truth set in and the un­mis­tak­able and en­forced idle­ness of re­main­ing with­out can­dles was ap­par­ent. Dur­ing this time, Lily, de­mand­ing pa­tience of her­self all the while, was think­ing what she would do, or rather what she would say, about the let­ter. That noth­ing would be done or said in the pres­ence of Grace Craw­ley was a mat­ter of course, nor would she do or say any­thing to get rid of Grace. She would be very pa­tient; but she would, at last, ask her moth­er about the let­ter.

And then, as luck would have it, Grace Craw­ley got up and left the room. Lily still wait­ed for a few min­utes, and, in or­der that her pa­tience might be thor­ough­ly ex­er­cised, she said a word or two about her sis­ter Bell; how the el­dest child’s whoop­ing-​cough was near­ly well, and how the ba­by was do­ing won­der­ful things with its first tooth. But as Mrs Dale had al­ready seen Bell’s let­ter, all this was not in­tense­ly in­ter­est­ing. At last Lily came to the point and asked her ques­tion. ‘Mam­ma, from whom was that oth­er let­ter which you got this morn­ing?’

Our sto­ry will per­haps be best told by com­mu­ni­cat­ing the let­ter to the read­er be­fore it was dis­cussed with Lily. The let­ter was as fol­lows:-

‘GEN­ER­AL COM­MIT­TEE OF­FICE,–Jan­uary, 186-’

I should have said that Mrs Dale had not opened the let­ter till she had found her­self in the soli­tude of her own bed­room; and that then, be­fore do­ing so, she had ex­am­ined the hand­writ­ing with anx­ious eyes. When she first re­ceived it she thought she knew the writ­er, but was not sure. Then she had glanced at the im­pres­sion over the fas­ten­ing, and had known at once from whom the let­ter had come. It was from Mr Cros­bie, the man who had brought so much trou­ble in­to her house, who had jilt­ed her daugh­ter; the on­ly man in the world whom she had a right to re­gard as a pos­itive en­emy to her­self. She had no doubt about it, as she tore the en­ve­lope open; and yet, when the ad­dress giv­en made her quite sure, a new feel­ing of shiv­er­ing came up­on her, and she asked her­self whether it might not be bet­ter that she should send his let­ter back to him with­out read­ing it. But she read it.

‘MADAM,’ the let­ter be­gan– ‘You will be very much sur­prised to hear from me, and I am quite aware that I am not en­ti­tled to the or­di­nary cour­tesy of an ac­knowl­edge­ment from you, should you be pleased to throw my let­ter on some side as un­wor­thy of your no­tice. But I can­not re­frain from ad­dress­ing you, and must leave it to you to re­ply or not, as you may think fit.

‘I will on­ly re­fer to that episode of my life with which you are ac­quaint­ed, for the sake of ac­knowl­edg­ing my great fault and of as­sur­ing you that I did not go un­pun­ished. It would be use­less for me now to at­tempt to ex­plain to you the cir­cum­stances which led me in­to that dif­fi­cul­ty which end­ed in so great a blun­der; but I will ask you to be­lieve that my fol­ly was greater than my sin.

‘But I will come to my point at once. You are, no doubt, aware that I mar­ried the daugh­ter of Lord De Cour­cy, and that I was sep­arat­ed from my wife a few weeks af­ter our un­for­tu­nate mar­riage. It is now some­thing over twelve months since she died at Baden- Baden in her moth­er’s house. I nev­er saw her since the day we first part­ed. I have not a word to say against her. The fault was mine in mar­ry­ing a wom­an whom I did not love and had nev­er loved. When I mar­ried La­dy Alexan­dri­na I loved, not her, but your daugh­ter.

‘I be­lieve I may ven­ture to say to you that your daugh­ter once loved me. From the day on which I last wrote to you that ter­ri­ble let­ter which told you of my fate, I have nev­er men­tioned the name of Lily Dale to hu­man ears. It has been too sa­cred for my mouth–too sa­cred for the in­ter­course of any friend­ship with which I have been blessed. I now use it for the first time to you, in or­der that I may ask whether it be pos­si­ble that her old love should ev­er live again. Mine has lived al­ways–has nev­er fad­ed for an hour, mak­ing me mis­er­able dur­ing the last years that have passed since I saw her, but ca­pa­ble of mak­ing me very hap­py, if I may be al­lowed to see her again.

‘You will un­der­stand my pur­pose now as well as though I were to write pages. I have no scheme formed in my head for see­ing your daugh­ter again. How can I dare to form a scheme, when I am aware that the chance of suc­cess must be so strong against me? But if you will tell me that there can be a gleam of hope, I will obey any com­mands that you can put up­on me in any way that you may point out. I am free again–and she is free. I love her with all my heart, and seem to long for noth­ing in the world but that she should be­come my wife. Whether any of her old love may still abide with her, you will know. If it do, it may even yet prompt her to for­give one, who, in spite of false­ness of con­duct, has yet been true to her in heart.

‘I have the hon­our to be, Madam, ‘Your most obe­di­ent ser­vant,

ADOL­PHUS CROS­BIE.’

This was the let­ter which Mrs Dale had re­ceived, and as to which she had not as yet said a word to Lily, or even made up her mind whether she would say a word or not. Dear­ly as the moth­er and daugh­ter loved each oth­er, thor­ough as was the con­fi­dence be­tween them, yet the name of Adol­phus Cros­bie had not been men­tioned be­tween them of­ten­er, per­haps, than half-​a-​dozen times since the blow had been struck. Mrs Dale knew that their feel­ings about the man were al­to­geth­er dif­fer­ent. She, her­self, not on­ly con­demned him for what he had done, be­liev­ing it to be im­pos­si­ble that any shad­ow of ex­cuse could be urged for his of­fence, think­ing that the fault had shown the man to be mean be­yond re­demp­tion–but she had al­lowed her­self ac­tu­al­ly to hate him. He had in one sense mur­dered her daugh­ter, and she be­lieved that she could nev­er for­give him. But, Lily, as her moth­er well knew, had for­giv­en this man al­to­geth­er, had made ex­cus­es for him which cleansed his sin of all its black­ness in her own eyes, and was to this day anx­ious as ev­er for his wel­fare and his hap­pi­ness. Mrs Dale feared that Lily did in truth love him still. If it was so, was she not bound to show her this let­ter? Lily was old enough to judge for her­self–old enough, and wise enough too. Mrs Dale told her­self half-​a-​score of times that morn­ing that she could not be jus­ti­fied in keep­ing the let­ter from her daugh­ter.

But yet much she wished that the let­ter had nev­er been writ­ten, and would have giv­en very much to be able to put it out of the way with­out in­jus­tice to Lily. To her think­ing it would be im­pos­si­ble that Lily should be hap­py mar­ry­ing such a man. Such a mar­riage now would be, as Mrs Dale thought, a degra­da­tion to her daugh­ter. A ter­ri­ble in­jury had been done to her; but such repa­ra­tion as this would, in Mrs Dale’s eyes, on­ly make the in­jury deep­er. And yet Lily loved the man; and, lov­ing him, how could she re­sist the temp­ta­tion of his of­fer? ‘Mam­ma, from whom was that let­ter which you got this morn­ing? Lily asked. For a few mo­ments Mrs Dale re­mained silent. ‘Mam­ma,’ con­tin­ued Lily, ‘I think I know whom it was from. If you tell me to ask noth­ing fur­ther, of course I will not.’

‘No, Lily; I can­not tell you that.’

‘Then, mam­ma, out with it at once. What is the use of shiv­er­ing on the brink?’

‘It was from Mr Cros­bie.’

‘I knew it. I can­not tell you why, but I knew it. And now, mam­ma;–am I to read it?’

‘You shall do as you please, Lily.’

‘Then I please to read it.’

‘Lis­ten to me a mo­ment first. For my­self, I wish that the let­ter had nev­er been writ­ten. It tells bad­ly for the man, as I think of it. I can­not un­der­stand how any man could have brought him­self to ad­dress ei­ther you or me, af­ter hav­ing act­ed as he act­ed.’

‘But, mam­ma, we dif­fer about all that, you know.’

‘Now he has writ­ten, and there is the let­ter–if you choose to read it.’

Lily had it in her hand, but she still sat mo­tion­less, hold­ing it. ‘You think, mam­ma, I ought not to read it?’

‘You must judge for your­self, dear­est.’

‘And if I do not read it, what shall you do, mam­ma?’

‘I shall do noth­ing;–or, per­haps, I should in such a case ac­knowl­edge it, and tell him that we have noth­ing more to say to him.’

‘That should be very stern.’

‘He has done that which makes some stern­ness nec­es­sary.’

Then Lily was again silent, and still she sat mo­tion­less, with the let­ter in her hand. ‘Mam­ma,’ she said at last, ‘if you tell me not to read it, I will give it back to you un­read. If you bid me ex­er­cise my own judg­ment, I shall take it up­stairs and read it.’

‘You must ex­er­cise your own judg­ment,’ said Mrs Dale. Then Lily got up from her chair and walked slow­ly out of the room, and went to her moth­er’s cham­ber. The thoughts which passed through Mrs Dale’s mind while her daugh­ter was read­ing the let­ter were very sad. She could find no com­fort any­where. Lily, she had told her­self, would sure­ly give way to this man’s re­newed ex­pres­sions of af­fec­tion, and she, Mrs Dale her­self, would be called up­on to give her child to a man whom she could nei­ther love nor re­spect;–who, for aught she knew, she could nev­er cease to hate. And she could not bring her­self to be­lieve that Lily could be hap­py with such a man. As for her own life, des­olate as it would be–she cared lit­tle for that. Moth­ers know that their daugh­ters will leave them. Even wid­owed moth­ers, moth­ers with but one child left–such a one as was this moth­er—are aware that they will be left alone, and they can bring them­selves to wel­come the sac­ri­fice of them­selves with some­thing of sat­is­fac­tion. Mrs Dale and Lily had, in­deed, of late be­come bound to­geth­er es­pe­cial­ly, so that the moth­er had been jus­ti­fied in re­gard­ing the link which joined them as be­ing firmer than that by which most daugh­ters are bound to their moth­ers;–but in all that she would have found no re­gret. Even now, in these very days, she was hop­ing that Lily might yet be brought to give her­self to John Eames. But she could not, af­ter all that was come and gone, be hap­py in think­ing that Lily should be giv­en to Adol­phus Cros­bie.

When Mrs Dale went up­stairs to her own room be­fore din­ner Lily was not there; nor were they alone to­geth­er again that evening ex­cept for a mo­ment, when Lily, as usu­al, went in­to her moth­er’s room when she was un­dress­ing. But nei­ther of them then said a word about the let­ter. Lily dur­ing din­ner and through­out the evening had borne her­self well, giv­ing no sign of spe­cial emo­tion, keep­ing to her­self en­tire­ly her own thoughts about the propo­si­tion made to her. And af­ter­wards she had pro­gressed dili­gent­ly with the fab­ri­ca­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s shirts, as though she had no such let­ter in her pock­et. And yet there was not a mo­ment in which she was not think­ing of it. To Grace, just be­fore she went to bed, she did say one word. ‘I won­der whether it can ev­er come to a per­son to be so placed that there can be no do­ing right, let what will be done;–that, do or not do, as you may, it must be wrong?’

‘I hope you are not in such a con­di­tion,’ said Grace.

‘I am some­thing near it,’ said Lily, ‘but per­haps if I look long enough I shall see the light.’

‘I hope that it will be a hap­py light at last,’ said Grace, who thought that Lily was re­fer­ring on­ly to John Eames.

At noon on the next day Lily had still said noth­ing to her moth­er about the let­ter; and then what she said was very lit­tle. ‘When must you an­swer Mr Cros­bie, mam­ma?’

‘When, my dear?’

‘I mean how long may you take? It need not be to­day.’

‘No;–cer­tain­ly not to­day.’

‘Then I will talk it over with you to­mor­row. It wants some think­ing;–does it not, mam­ma?’

‘It would not want much with me, Lily.’

‘But then, mam­ma, you are not I. Be­liev­ing as I be­lieve, feel­ing as I feel, it wants some think­ing. That’s what I mean.’

‘I wish I could help you, my dear.’

‘You shall help me–to­mor­row.’ The mor­row came and Lily was still very pa­tient; but she had pre­pared her­self, and had pre­pared the time al­so, so that in the hour of the gloam­ing she was alone with her moth­er, and sure that she might re­main alone with her for an hour or so. ‘Mam­ma, sit there,’ she said; ‘I will sit down here, and then I can lean against you and be com­fort­able. You can bear as much of me as that–can’t you, mam­ma?’ Then Mrs Dale put her arm over Lily’s shoul­der, and em­braced her daugh­ter. ‘And now, mam­ma, we will talk about this won­der­ful let­ter.’

‘I do not know, dear, that I have any­thing to say about it.’

‘But you must have some­thing to say about it, mam­ma. You must bring your­self to have some­thing to say–to have a great deal to say.’

‘You know what I think as well as though I talked for a week.’

‘That won’t do, mam­ma. Come, you must not be hard with me.’

‘Hard, Lily!’

‘I don’t mean that you will hurt me, or not give me any food–or that you will not go on car­ing about me more than any­thing else in the whole world ten times over–’ And Lily as she spoke, tight­ened the em­brace of her moth­er’s arm round her neck. I’m not afraid you’ll be hard in that way. But you must soft­en your heart so as to be able to men­tion his name and talk about him, and tell me what I ought to do. You must see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, and feel with my heart;–and then, when I know that you have done that, I must judge with your judg­ment.’

‘I wish you to use your own.’

‘Yes;–be­cause you won’t see with my eyes and hear with my ears. That’s what I call be­ing hard. Though you should feed me with blood from your breast, I should call you a hard pel­ican, un­less you could give me al­so the sym­pa­thy which I de­mand from you. You see, mam­ma, we have nev­er al­lowed our­selves to speak of this man.’

‘What need has there been, dear­est?’

‘On­ly be­cause we have been think­ing of him. Out of the full heart the mouth speaketh;–that is, the mouth does so, when the full heart is al­lowed to have its own com­fort­ably.’

‘There are things which should be for­got­ten.’

‘For­got­ten, mam­ma?’

‘The mem­ory of which should not be fos­tered by much talk­ing.’

‘I have nev­er blamed you, mam­ma; nev­er, even in my heart. I have known how good and gra­cious and sweet you have been. But I have of­ten ac­cused my­self of cow­ardice be­cause I have not al­lowed his name to cross my lips ei­ther to you or to Bell. To talk of for­get­ting such an ac­ci­dent as that is a farce. And as for fos­ter­ing the mem­ory of it–! Do you think that I have ev­er spent a night from that time to this with­out think­ing of him? Do you imag­ine that I have ev­er crossed our own lawn, or gone down through the gar­den-​path there, with­out think­ing of the times when he and I walked there to­geth­er? There needs no fos­ter­ing for such mem­ories as those. They are weeds which will go rank and strong though noth­ing be done to fos­ter them. There is the earth and the rain, and that is enough for them. You can­not kill them if you would, and they cer­tain­ly will not die be­cause you are care­ful not to hoe and rake the ground.

‘Lily, you for­get how short the time has been as yet.’

‘I have thought it very long; but the truth is, mam­ma, that this non-​fos­ter­ing of mem­ories, as you call it, has not been the re­al cause of our si­lence. We have not spo­ken of Mr Cros­bie be­cause we have not thought alike about him. Had you spo­ken you would have spo­ken with anger, and I could not en­dure to hear him abused. That has been it.’

‘Part­ly so, Lily.’

‘Now you must talk of him, and you must not abuse him. We must talk of him, be­cause some­thing must be done about his let­ter. Even it be left unan­swered, it can­not be so left with­out dis­cus­sion. And yet you must say no evil of him.’

‘Am I to think he be­haved well?’

‘No, mam­ma; you are not to think that; but you are to look up­on his fault as a fault that has been for­giv­en.’

‘It can­not be for­giv­en, dear.’

‘But, mam­ma, when you go to heav­en–’

‘My dear!’

‘But you will go to heav­en, mam­ma, and why should I not speak of it? You will go to heav­en, and yet I sup­pose you have been very wicked, be­cause we are all very wicked. But you won’t be told of your wicked­ness there. You won’t be hat­ed there, be­cause you were this or that when you were here.’

‘I hope not, Lily; but isn’t your ar­gu­ment al­most pro­fane?’

‘No; I don’t think so. We ask to be for­giv­en just as we for­give. That is the way in which we hope to be for­giv­en, and there­fore it is the way in which we ought to for­give. When you say that prayer at night, mam­ma, do you ev­er ask your­self whether you have for­giv­en him?’

‘I for­give him as far as hu­man­ity can for­give. I would do him no in­jury.’

‘But if you and I are for­giv­en on­ly af­ter that fash­ion we shall nev­er get to heav­en.’ Lily paused for some fur­ther an­swer from her moth­er, but as Mrs Dale was silent she al­lowed that por­tion of the sub­ject to pass as com­plet­ed. ‘And now, mam­ma, what an­swer do you think we ought to send to his let­ter?’

‘My dear, how am I to say? You know I have said al­ready that if I could act on my own judg­ment, I would send none.’

‘But that was said in the bit­ter­ness of gall.’

‘Come, Lily, say what you think your­self. We shall get on bet­ter when you have brought your­self to speak. Do you think that you wish to see him again?’

‘I don’t know, mam­ma. Up­on the whole, I think not.’

‘Then in heav­en’s name, let me write and tell him so.’

‘Stop a mo­ment, mam­ma. There are two per­sons here to be con­sid­ered–or rather, three.’

‘I would not have you think of me in such a ques­tion.’

‘I know you would not; but nev­er mind, and let me go on. The three of us are con­cerned, at any rate; you, he, and I. I am think­ing of him now. We have all suf­fered, but I do be­lieve that hith­er­to he has had the worst of it.’

‘And who had de­served the worst?’

‘Mam­ma, how can you go back in that way? We have agreed that that should be re­gard­ed as done and gone. He has been very un­hap­py, and now we see what rem­edy he pro­pos­es to him­self for his mis­ery. Do I flat­ter my­self if I al­low my­self to look at it in that way?’

‘Per­haps he thinks he is of­fer­ing a rem­edy for your mis­ery.’

As this was said, Lily turned round slow­ly and looked up in­to her moth­er’s face. ‘Mam­ma,’ she said, ‘that is very cru­el. I did not think you could be so cru­el. How can you, who be­lieve him to be so self­ish, think that?’

‘It is very hard to judge of men’s mo­tives. I have nev­er sup­posed him to be so black that he would not wish to make atone­ment for the evil he has done.’

‘If I thought that there cer­tain­ly could be no an­swer.’

‘Who can look in­to a man’s heart and judge all the sources of his ac­tions? There are mixed feel­ings there, no doubt. Re­morse for what he has done; re­gret for what he has lost;–some­thing, per­haps, of the pu­ri­ty of love.’

‘Yes, some­thing–I hope some­thing–for his sake.’

‘But when a horse kicks and bites, you know his na­ture and do not go near him. When a man has cheat­ed you once, you think he will cheat you again, and you do not deal with him. You do not look to gath­er grapes from this­tles, af­ter you have found that they are this­tles.’

‘I still go for the ros­es though I have of­ten torn my hand with thorns in look­ing for them.’

‘But you do not pluck those that have be­come cankered in the blow­ing.’

‘Be­cause he was once at fault, will he be cankered al­ways?’

‘I would not trust him.’

‘Now, mam­ma, see how dif­fer­ent we are; or, rather, how dif­fer­ent it is when one judges for one­self or an­oth­er. If it were sim­ply my­self, and my own fu­ture fate in life, I would trust him with it all to­mor­row, with­out a word. I should go to him as a gam­bler goes to the gam­ing-​ta­ble, know­ing that I lose ev­ery­thing, I could hard­ly be poor­er than I was be­fore. But I should have a bet­ter hope than the gam­bler is jus­ti­fied in hav­ing. That, how­ev­er, is not my dif­fi­cul­ty. And when I think of him I can see a prospect for suc­cess for the gam­bler. I think so well of my­self that, lov­ing him, as I do;–yes, mam­ma, do not be un­easy;–lov­ing him as I do, I be­lieve I could be a com­fort to him. I think that he might be bet­ter with me than with­out me. That is, he would be so, if he could teach him­self to look back up­on the past as I can do, and to judge of me as I can judge of him.’

‘He has noth­ing, at least, for which to con­demn you.’

‘But he would have, were I to mar­ry him now. He would con­demn me be­cause I had for­giv­en him. He would con­demn me be­cause I had borne what he had done to me, and had still loved him–loved him through it all. He would feel and know the weak­ness–and there is weak­ness. I have been weak in not be­ing able to rid my­self of him al­to­geth­er. He would recog­nise this af­ter a while, and would de­spise me for it. But he would not see what there is of de­vo­tion to him in my be­ing able to bear the taunts of the world in go­ing back to him, and to your taunts, and my own taunts. I should have to bear his al­so–not spo­ken aloud, but to be seen in his face and heard in his voice–and that I could not en­dure. If he de­spised me, and he would, that would make us both un­hap­py. There­fore, mam­ma, tell him not to come; tell him that he can nev­er come; but, if it be pos­si­ble, tell him ten­der­ly.’ Then she got up and walked away, as though she were go­ing out of the room, but her moth­er had caught her be­fore the door was opened.

‘Lily,’ she said, ‘if you think you can be hap­py with him, he shall come.’

‘No, mam­ma, no. I have been look­ing for the light ev­er since I read his let­ter, and I think I see it. And now, mam­ma, I will make a clean breast of it. From the mo­ment in which I heard that that poor wom­an was dead, I have been in a state of flut­ter. It has been weak of me, and sil­ly, and con­temptible. But I could not help it. I kept on ask­ing my­self whether he would ev­er think of me now. Well; he has an­swered the ques­tion; and has so done it that he has forced up­on me the ne­ces­si­ty of a res­olu­tion. I have re­solved, and I be­lieve that I shall be the bet­ter for it.’

The let­ter which Mrs Dale wrote to Mr Cros­bie was as fol­lows:-

‘Mrs Dale presents her com­pli­ments to Mr Cros­bie, and begs to as­sure him that it will not now be pos­si­ble that he should re­new the re­la­tions which were bro­ken off three years ago, be­tween him and Mrs Dale’s fam­ily.’ It was very short, cer­tain­ly, and it did not by any means sat­is­fy Mrs Dale. But she did not know how to say more with­out say­ing too much. The ob­ject of her let­ter was to save him the trou­ble of a fu­tile per­se­ver­ance, and them from the an­noy­ance of per­se­cu­tion; and this she wished to do with­out men­tion­ing her daugh­ter’s name. And she was de­ter­mined that no word should es­cape her in which there was any touch of sever­ity, any hint of an ac­cu­sa­tion. So much she owed to Lily in re­turn for all that Lily was pre­pared to aban­don. ‘There is my note,’ she said at last, of­fer­ing it to her daugh­ter. ‘I did not mean to see it,’ said Lily, ‘and, mam­ma, I will not read it now. Let it go. I know you have been good and have not scold­ed him.’ ‘I have not scold­ed him, cer­tain­ly,’ said Mrs Dale. And then the let­ter was sent.