of establishing himself in his business in the same country, that would
make a difference--a difference that it was hard, perhaps, for a
thoughtful man to put into words, but which was still harder to wipe
away by any sophistry of words. Robert Trenholme may have been wise, or
he may have been foolish, but he estimated this difference as great.
Should Alec persist in this thing, it would, in the first place,
endanger the success of his school, or alter his relation to that
school; in the second, it would make him more unworthy in the eyes of
all Sophia's well-born relatives. While he remained in suspense,
therefore, he was too honourable to seek to entangle her affections by
the small arts that are used for such purposes; for if the worst came,
he felt that he would be too proud to ask her to be his wife, or, if
love should overcome pride, and he should still sue for what he loved
better than life, he must do so before he sought her heart--not after;
he must lay his cause before the tribunal of Sophia's wit before she had
let go her heart--a thing that he, being what he was, had not courage to
do.

He was not "living a lie" (as his brother had said) any more than every
man does who allows his mind to dwell on the truth of what pleases him
more than on disagreeable truth. The fact that he was, by a distant tie
of consanguinity, related to a gentleman of some county position in
England was just as true, and to Trenholme's mind more largely true,
than the fact of his father's occupation. Yet he had never made this a
boast; he had never voluntarily stated the pleasant truth to any one to
whom he had not also told the unpleasant; and where he had kept silence
concerning the latter, he had done so by the advice of good men, and
with excuse concerning his professional influence. Yet, some way, he was
not sufficiently satisfied with all this to have courage to bring it
before Miss Rexford, nor yet was he prepared (and here was his worldly