partly by the strength of her tongue, partly by the ascendancy of her spirit, and partly, also, by the comforts which she would provide for him.  She had not doubted but that it would be all well when they should be married; but how if, even now, there should be no marriage for her?  Camilla French had never heard of Creusa and of Jason, but as she paced her mother’s drawing-room that morning she was a Medea in spirit.  If any plot of that kind should be in the wind, she would do such things that all Devonshire should hear of her wrongs and of her revenge!

In the meantime Mr Gibson was sitting by Arabella’s bedside, while Mrs French was trying to make herself busy in her own chamber, next door.  There had been a reading of some chapter of the Bible or of some portion of a chapter.  And Mr Gibson, as he read, and Arabella, as she listened, had endeavoured to take to their hearts and to make use of the word which they heard.  The poor young woman, when she begged her mother to send to her the man who was so dear to her, did so with some half-formed condition that it would be good for her to hear a clergyman read to her.  But now the chapter had been read, and the book was back in Mr Gibson’s pocket, and he was sitting with his hand on the bed.’she is so very arrogant,’ said Bella,’ and so domineering.’  To this Mr Gibson made no reply.  ’I’m sure I have endeavoured to bear it well, though you must have known what I have suffered, Thomas.  Nobody can understand it so well as you do.’

‘I wish I had never been born,’ said Mr Gibson tragically.

‘Don’t say that, Thomas, because it’s wicked.’

‘But I do.  See all the harm I have done, and yet I did not mean it.’

’You must try and do the best you can now.  I am not saying what that should be.  I am not dictating to you.  You are a man, and, of course, you must judge for yourself.  But I will say this.  You shouldn’t do anything just because it is the easiest.  I don’t suppose I should live after it.  I don’t indeed.  But that should not signify to you.’

’I don’t suppose that any man was ever before in such a terrible position since the world began.’

‘It is difficult; I am sure of that, Thomas.’

’And I have meant to be so true.  I fancy sometimes that some mysterious agency interferes with the affairs of a man and drives him on and on and on, almost till he doesn’t know where it drives him.’  As he said this in a voice that was quite sepulchral in its tone, he felt some consolation in the conviction that this mysterious agency could not affect a man without imbuing him with a certain amount of grandeur, very uncomfortable, indeed, in its nature, but still having considerable value as a counterpoise.  Pride must bear pain, but pain is recompensed by pride.

‘She is so strong, Thomas, that she can put up with anything,’ said Arabella, in a whisper.

‘Strong yes,’ said he, with a shudder ‘she is strong enough.’