depended on him for the innocence it was actually vital she should
establish. He flushed or frowned or winced no more at that than he did
when she once more fairly emptied her satchel and, quite as if they
had been Nancy and the Artful Dodger, or some nefarious pair of that
sort, talking things over in the manner of _Oliver Twist_, revealed
to him the fondness of her view that, could she but have produced a
cleaner slate, she might by this time have pulled it off with Mr.
French. Yes, he let her in that way sacrifice her honorable connection
with him--all the more honorable for being so completely at an end--to
the crudity of her plan for not missing another connection, so much
more brilliant than what he offered, and for bringing another man,
with whom she so invidiously and unflatteringly compared him, into her
greedy life.

There was only a moment during which, by a particular lustrous look
she had never had from him before, he just made her wonder which turn
he was going to take; she felt, however, as safe as was consistent
with her sense of having probably but added to her danger, when he
brought out, the next instant: "Don't you seem to take the ground that
we were guilty--that _you_ were ever guilty--of something we shouldn't
have been? What did we ever do that was secret, or underhand, or any
way not to be acknowledged? What did we do but exchange our young vows
with the best faith in the world--publicly, rejoicingly, with the full
assent of every one connected with us? I mean of course," he said with
his grave kind smile, "till we broke off so completely because we
found that--practically, financially, on the hard worldly basis--we
couldn't work it. What harm, in the sight of God or man, Julia," he
asked in his fine rich way, "did we ever do?"

She gave him back his look, turning pale. "Am I talking of _that_? Am