But I am not writing a novel, and, as the biographer of this simple factory girl, am offered few advantages.

Asenath was no heroine, you see.  Such heroic elements as were in her—­none could tell exactly what they were, or whether there were any:  she was one of those people in whom it is easy to be quite mistaken;—­her life had not been one to develop.  She might have a certain pride of her own, under given circumstances; but plants grown in a cellar will turn to the sun at any cost; how could she go back into her dark?

As for the other man to marry, he was out of the question.  Then, none love with the tenacity of the unhappy; no life is so lavish of itself as the denied life:  to him that hath not shall be given,—­and Asenath loved this Richard Cross.

It might be altogether the grand and suitable thing to say to him, “I will not be your wife.”  It might be that she would thus regain a strong shade of lost self-respect.  It might be that she would make him happy, and give pleasure to Del.  It might be that the two young people would be her “friends,” and love her in a way.

But all this meant that Dick must go out of her life.  Practically, she must make up her mind to build the fires, and pump the water, and mend the windows alone.  In dreary fact, he would not listen when she sung; would not say, “You are tired, Sene”; would never kiss away an undried tear.  There would be nobody to notice the crimson cape, nobody to make blue neck-ties for; none for whom to save the Bonnes de Jersey, or to take sweet, tired steps, or make dear, dreamy plans.  To be sure, there was her father; but fathers do not count for much in a time like this on which Sene had fallen.

That Del Ivy was—­Del Ivory, added intricacies to the question.  It was a very unpoetic but undoubted fact that Asenath could in no way so insure Dick’s unhappiness as to pave the way to his marriage with the woman whom he loved.  There would be a few merry months, then slow worry and disappointment; pretty Del accepted at last, not as the crown of his young life, but as its silent burden and misery.  Poor Dick! good Dick!  Who deserved more wealth of wifely sacrifice?  Asenath, thinking this, crimsoned with pain and shame.  A streak of good common sense in the girl told her—­though she half scorned herself for the conviction—­that even a crippled woman who should bear all things and hope all things for his sake might blot out the memory of this rounded Del; that, no matter what the motive with which he married her, he would end by loving his wife like other people.

She watched him sometimes in the evenings, as he turned his kind eyes after her over the library book which he was reading.

“I know I could make him happy!  I know I could!” she muttered fiercely to herself.