“They say, the pillow’s the best counsellor.”

A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly unfriendly.

“Did father wish it?”

“Not by what he spoke.”

“You suppose he does wish it?”

“Where’s the father who wouldn’t?  Of course, he wishes it.  He’s kind enough, but you may be certain he wishes it.”

“Oh!  Dahlia, Dahlia!” Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations, unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking shamelessly out.

“Ah! poor soul!” added Robert.

“My darling must be brave:  she must have great courage.  Dahlia cannot be a coward.  I begin to see.”

Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old matters by a fresh light.

“I can’t think,” she said, with a start.  “Have I been dreadfully cruel?  Was I unsisterly?  I have such a horror of some things—­disgrace.  And men are so hard on women; and father—­I felt for him.  And I hated that base man.  It’s his cousin and his name!  I could almost fancy this trial is brought round to me for punishment.”

An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, “You can’t let harm come to your uncle.”

The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman’s possible duty.

“Are you of that opinion?” Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered nothing.

Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone.  She should have noted that.  And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving such counsel to her whom he loved?  It smote him with horror and anger; but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and continued to dissemble.  You see, he had not forgiven her for her indifference to him.

“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.