of Ongar Park.  She had walked among it all alone, and despised.  But it would be a glory to her to see him go forth, with Giles at his heels, boldly giving his orders, changing this and improving that.  He would be rebuked for no errors, let him do with Enoch Gubby and the rest of them what he pleased!  And then the parson’s wife would be glad enough to come to her, and the house would be full of smiling faces.  And it might be that God would be good to her, and that she would have treasures, as other women had them, and that the flavor would come back to the apples, and, that the ashes would cease to grate between her teeth.

She loved him, and why should it not be so?  She could go before God’s altar with him without disgracing herself with a lie.  She could put her hand in his, and swear honestly that she would worship him and obey him.  She had been dishonest; but if he would pardon her for that, could she not reward him richly for such pardon?  And it seemed to her that he had pardoned her.  He had forgiven it all and was gracious to her—­coming at her beck and call, and sitting with her as though he liked her presence.  She was woman enough to understand this, and she knew that he liked it.  Of course he loved her.  How could it be otherwise?

But yet he spoke nothing to her of his love.  In the old days there had been with him no bashfulness of that kind.  He was not a man to tremble and doubt before a woman.  In those old days he had bean ready enough—­so ready, that she had wondered that one who had just come from his books should know so well how to make himself master of a girl’s heart.  Nature had given him that art, as she does give it to some, withholding it from many.  But now he sat near her, dropping once and again half words of love, hearing her references to the old times; and yet he said nothing.

But how was he to speak of love to one who was a widow but of four months’ standing?  And with what face could he now again ask for her hand, knowing that it had been filled so full since last it was refused to him?  It was thus she argued to herself when she excused him in that he did not speak to her.  As to her widowhood, to herself it was a thing of scorn.  Thinking of it, she cast her weepers from her, and walked about the room, scorning the hypocrisy of her dress.  It needed that she should submit herself to this hypocrisy before the world; but he might know—­for had she not told him?—­that the clothes she wore were no index of her feeling or of her heart.  She had been mean enough, base enough, vile enough, to sell herself to that wretched lord.  Mean, base, and vile she had been, and she now confessed it; but she was not false enough to pretend that she mourned the man as a wife mourns.  Harry might have seen enough to know, have understood enough to perceive, that he need not regard her widowhood.