Events mocked her on all sides. By the favour of an accident, and by her

own immense exertions against her instincts, Swithin had been restored to

the rightful heritage that he had nearly forfeited on her account. He

had just started off to utilize it; when she, without a moment's warning,

was asking him again to cast it away. She had set a certain machinery in

motion--to stop it before it had revolved once.

A horrid apprehension possessed her. It had been easy for Swithin to

give up what he had never known the advantages of keeping; but having

once begun to enjoy his possession would he give it up now? Could he be

depended on for such self-sacrifice? Before leaving, he would have done

anything at her request; but the mollia tempora fandi had now passed.

Suppose there arrived no reply from him for the next three months; and

that when his answer came he were to inform her that, having now fully

acquiesced in her original decision, he found the life he was leading so

profitable as to be unable to abandon it, even to please her; that he was

very sorry, but having embarked on this course by her advice he meant to

adhere to it by his own.

There was, indeed, every probability that, moving about as he was doing,

and cautioned as he had been by her very self against listening to her

too readily, she would receive no reply of any sort from him for three or

perhaps four months. This would be on the eve of the Transit; and what

likelihood was there that a young man, full of ardour for that spectacle,

would forego it at the last moment to return to a humdrum domesticity

with a woman who was no longer a novelty?

If she could only leave him to his career, and save her own situation

also! But at that moment the proposition seemed as impossible as to

construct a triangle of two straight lines.

In her walk home, pervaded by these hopeless views, she passed near the

dark and deserted tower. Night in that solitary place, which would have

caused her some uneasiness in her years of blitheness, had no terrors for

her now. She went up the winding path, and, the door being unlocked,

felt her way to the top. The open sky greeted her as in times previous

to the dome-and-equatorial period; but there was not a star to suggest to

her in which direction Swithin had gone. The absence of the dome

suggested a way out of her difficulties. A leap in the dark, and all

would be over. But she had not reached that stage of action as yet, and

the thought was dismissed as quickly as it had come.




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