All this, and more, he said, and pleaded for a further meeting.

“Not here,” Louisa said calmly.

They parted at the beginning of a heavy shower of rain, and the fall James Harthouse had ridden for was averted.

Mrs. Bounderby left her husband’s house, left it for good; not to share Mr. Harthouse’s life, but to return to her father.

Mr. Gradgrind, released from parliament for a time, was alone in his study, when his eldest daughter entered.

“What is the matter, Louisa?”

“Father, I want to speak to you.  You have trained me from my cradle?”

“Yes, Louisa.”

“I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.  How could you give me life, and take from me all the things that raise it from the state of conscious death?  Now, hear what I have come to say.  With a hunger and a thirst upon me, father, which have never been for a moment appeased, in a condition where it seemed nothing could be worth the pain and trouble of a contest, you proposed my husband to me.”

“I never knew you were unhappy, my child!”

“I took him.  I never made a pretence to him or you that I loved him.  I knew, and, father you knew, and he knew, that I never did.  I was not wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful to Tom.  But Tom had been the subject of all the little tenderness of my life, perhaps he became so because I knew so well how to pity him.  It matters little now, except as it may dispose you to think more leniently of his errors.”

“What can I do, child?  Ask me what you will.”

“I am coming to it.  Father, chance has thrown into my way a new acquaintance; a man such as I had had no experience of—­light, polished, easy.  I only wondered it should be worth his while, who cared for nothing else, to care so much for me.  It matters little how he gained my confidence.  Father, he did gain it.  What you know of the story of my marriage he soon knew just as well.”

Her father’s face was ashy white.

“I have done no worse; I have not disgraced you.  This night, my husband being away, he has been with me.  This minute he expects me, for I could release myself of his presence by no other means.  I do not know that I am sorry or ashamed.  All that I know is, your philosophy and your teaching will not save me.  Father, you have brought me to this.  Save me by some other means?”

She fell insensible, and he saw the pride of his heart and the triumph of his system lying at his feet.  And it came to Thomas Gradgrind that night and on the morrow when he sat beside his daughter’s bed, that there was a wisdom of the heart no less than a wisdom of the head; and that in supposing the latter to be all sufficient, he had erred.

But no such change of mind took place in Mr. Bounderby.  Finding his wife absent, he went at once to Stone Lodge, and blustered in his usual way.