And as to her money! if that were the stumbling-block, might it not be well that the first overture should come from her?  Could she not find words to tell him that it might all be his?  Could she not say to him, “Harry Clavering, all this is nothing in my hands.  Take it into your hands, and it will prosper.”  Then, it was that she went to her desk, and attempted to write to him.  She did write to him a completed note, offering herself and all that was hers for his acceptance.  In doing so, she strove hard to be honest and yet not over bold; to be affectionate and yet not unfeminine.  Long she sat, holding her head with one hand, while the other attempted to use the pen which would not move over the paper.  At length, quickly it flew across the sheet, and a few lines were there for her to peruse.

“Harry Clavering,” she had written, “I know I am doing what men and women say no woman should do.  You may, perhaps, say so of me now; but if you do, I know you so well, that I do not fear that others will be able to repeat it.  Harry, I have never loved any one but you.  Will you be my husband?  You well know that I should not make you this offer if I did not intend that everything I have should be yours.  It will be pleasant to me to feel that I can make some reparation for the evil I have done.  As for love, I have never loved any one but you.  You yourself must know that well.  Yours, altogether, if you will have it so—­Julia.”

She took the letter with her back across the room to her seat by the fire, and took with her at the same time the little portrait; and there she sat, looking at the one and reading the other.  At last she slowly folded the note up into a thin wisp of paper, and, lighting the end of it, watched it till every shred of it was burnt to an ash.  “If he wants me,” she said, “he can come and take me—­as other men do.”  It was a fearful attempt, that which she had thought of making.  How could she have looked him in the face again had his answer to her been a refusal?

Another hour went by before she took herself to her bed, during which her cruelly used maiden was waiting for her half asleep in the chamber above; and during that time she tried to bring herself to some steady resolve.  She would remain in London for the coming months, so that he might come to her if he pleased.  She would remain there, even though she were subject to the daily attacks of Sophie Gordeloup.  She hardly knew why, but in part she was afraid of Sophie.  She had done nothing of which Sophie knew the secret.  She had no cause to tremble because Sophie might be offended.  The woman had seen her in some of her saddest moments, and could indeed tell of indignities which would have killed some women.  But these she had borne, and had not disgraced herself in the bearing of them.  But still she was afraid of Sophie, and felt that she could not bring herself absolutely to dismiss her friend from her house.  Nevertheless, she would remain; because Harry Clavering