“You are no longer your own mistress,” he said, meaning exactly the reverse.

This—­that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself—­was what Rhoda feared.  There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a woman, not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that she might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal of betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself loved no more by Robert.  She was weary of thinking and acting on her own responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her other resolute steps.  Pride whispered, “You could compel your sister to do that which she abhorred;” and Pity pleaded for her poor old uncle Anthony.  She looked back in imagination at that scene with him in London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness.

“I am not fit to be my own mistress,” she said.

“Then, the sooner you decide the better,” observed Robert, and the room became hot and narrow to him.

“Very little time is given me,” she murmured.  The sound was like a whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.

“I dare say you won’t find the hardship so great,” said he.

“Because,” she looked up quickly, “I went out one day to meet him?  Do you mean that, Robert?  I went to hear news of my sister.  I had received no letters from her.  And he wrote to say that he could tell me about her.  My uncle took me once to the Bank.  I saw him there first.  He spoke of Wrexby, and of my sister.  It is pleasant to inexperienced girls to hear themselves praised.  Since the day when you told me to turn back I have always respected you.”

Her eyelids lowered softly.

Could she have humbled herself more?  But she had, at the same time, touched his old wound:  and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a gentleman.  And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.

“I think,” he said, “I’ve never begged your pardon for the last occasion of our being alone here together.  I’ve had my arm round you.  Don’t be frightened.  That’s my marriage, and there was my wife.  And there’s an end of my likings and my misconduct.  Forgive me for calling it to mind.”

“No, no, Robert,” Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse, dropped them, saying:  “What forgiveness?  Was I ever angry with you?”

A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky crimson rose under his eyes.

“When you went into the wood, I saw you going:  I knew it was for some good object,” he said, and flushed equally.