Indeed, I found it hard in those days to meet the eyes of the neighbours, gentle and simple, who could not know why I had consented to marry Richard Dawson.  I felt that the county buzzed with it, castle and cabin alike, and it made me shrink away from those who had always been kind to me.  I was ashamed to go down the village street, for I knew the people would come to their doors and look after me, and say, “Isn’t it a wonder for Miss Bawn that she’d marry a Dawson? and the family always so proud, too.”

I noticed that none of the people who came to call were effusive in their congratulations except Lady Ardaragh, and she congratulated me with a high colour and an exaggeration of speech which did not ring true.

The Misses Chenevix called one day, and, while Miss Henrietta sat unhappily looking down at her lap, Miss Bride congratulated me in a voice which had no congratulation in it.

“I wish you happiness, Bawn,” she said.  “Not that I ever think marriage a subject for congratulation, but rather for condolence.”

A somewhat dreary sense of the humour of the speech made me answer that I thought I agreed with her, whereupon she snapped me up and said that, to be sure, some people must be married, though she for her part thought the world would get on very well without marriage; but then, of course, she was old-fashioned.

“And if you had to marry, Bawn,” she went on, “why didn’t you wait for your cousin?  The county always expected you to marry your cousin; and, if you must be married, Theobald would have suited you better than Mr. Dawson.  You’re not the girl I thought you, Bawn.”

I wondered what Theobald would think of me.  I had left it to my grandparents to explain to Theobald, and his letters to me had gone unanswered now for three weeks or more.

But, after all, it was not Theobald who was my tribunal; it was not from Theobald’s judgment I shrank.

It was Anthony Cardew I feared most.  When I endured the ignominy of Richard Dawson’s kisses, when he would hold me in his arms with his face against mine and I felt that nothing worse could happen to me, I used to keep wondering all the time what Anthony Cardew would think of me when he knew.

The thought made me desperate.  I could have slit my nose and chin, defaced myself like St. Ursula and her maidens, so that I should cease to be desirable to Richard Dawson.  But there were my grandparents, and the disgrace which I must buy back for them by giving myself.

Then one day, being in great misery, it occurred to me that I would write a letter to Anthony Cardew.  I was quite sure that I should be dead before he received it, for I knew I should not live long with Richard Dawson as his wife, if indeed I were not saved before that.  I was glad to think that I was growing thin; that I was languid on the least exertion, and had no appetite for my food.  I hoped that God would be merciful to me, and that I should just save them and die.  And presently Theobald would come home to them and they would be happy.