to her certain knowledge, betrayed the mercenary nature of the motive on his side.  She was then to add that their marriage, after what she had discovered, was a simple impossibility—­and she was to put it to him, whether he thought it wisest to secure her silence by falling in with her views, or to force her, by opposing them, to make the motive under which she was acting generally known.  If he attempted to defend himself, or to deny the facts, she was, in that event, to refer him to me.

Miss Verinder listened attentively till I had done.  She then thanked me very prettily for my advice, but informed me at the same time that it was impossible for her to follow it.

“May I ask,” I said, “what objection you see to following it?”

She hesitated—­and then met me with a question on her side.

“Suppose you were asked to express your opinion of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite’s conduct?” she began.

“Yes?”

“What would you call it?”

“I should call it the conduct of a meanly deceitful man.”

“Mr. Bruff!  I have believed in that man.  I have promised to marry that man.  How can I tell him he is mean, how can I tell him he has deceived me, how can I disgrace him in the eyes of the world after that?  I have degraded myself by ever thinking of him as my husband.  If I say what you tell me to say to him—­I am owning that I have degraded myself to his face.  I can’t do that.  After what has passed between us, I can’t do that!  The shame of it would be nothing to him.  But the shame of it would be unendurable to me.”

Here was another of the marked peculiarities in her character disclosing itself to me without reserve.  Here was her sensitive horror of the bare contact with anything mean, blinding her to every consideration of what she owed to herself, hurrying her into a false position which might compromise her in the estimation of all her friends!  Up to this time, I had been a little diffident about the propriety of the advice I had given to her.  But, after what she had just said, I had no sort of doubt that it was the best advice that could have been offered; and I felt no sort of hesitation in pressing it on her again.

She only shook her head, and repeated her objection in other words.

“He has been intimate enough with me to ask me to be his wife.  He has stood high enough in my estimation to obtain my consent.  I can’t tell him to his face that he is the most contemptible of living creatures, after that!”

“But, my dear Miss Rachel,” I remonstrated, “it’s equally impossible for you to tell him that you withdraw from your engagement without giving some reason for it.”

“I shall say that I have thought it over, and that I am satisfied it will be best for both of us if we part.

“No more than that?”

“No more.”

“Have you thought of what he may say, on his side?”