Bennett?"

"First, what is yours?"

Christian pondered a little. "It seems to me that the only thing is
for me to speak to her myself, quite openly and plainly, when she comes
tomorrow."

"And then dismiss her?"

"I fear so."

"For having a lover?" said Dr. Grey, with an amused twinkle in his eye.

"Not exactly, but for telling Titia about it, and making use of the child
for her own selfish needs. Do you consider me hard? Well, it is
because I know what this ends in. Miss Gascoigne does not see it, but I
do. She only thinks of 'propriety.' I think of something far deeper--a
girl's first notions about those sort of things. It is cruel to meddle with
them before their time--to take the bloom off the peach and the scent
off the rose; to put worldliness instead of innocence, and conceited
folly instead of simple, solemn, awful love. I would rather die, even
now--you will think I am always ready for dying--but I would rather
die than live to think and feel about love like some women--ay, and not
bad women either, whom I have known."

Mrs. Grey had gone on, hardly considering what she was saying or to
what it referred, till she was startled to feel fixed upon her her
husband's earnest eyes.