“But my powers —­ where are they for this undertaking?  I do not feel them.  Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk.  I am sensible of no light kindling —­ no life quickening —­ no voice counselling or cheering.  Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths —­ the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!”

“I have an answer for you —­ hear it.  I have watched you ever since we first met:  I have made you my study for ten months.  I have proved you in that time by sundry tests:  and what have I seen and elicited?  In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact:  you could win while you controlled.  In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:- lucre had no undue power over you.  In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice.  In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it —­ in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties —­ I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek.  Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic:  cease to mistrust yourself —­ I can trust you unreservedly.  As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.”

My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step.  Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear.  My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand.  He waited for an answer.  I demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a reply.

“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.

“I can do what he wants me to do:  I am forced to see and acknowledge that,” I meditated, —­ “that is, if life be spared me.  But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun.  What then?  He does not care for that:  when my time came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me.  The case is very plain before me.  In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land —­