sometimes, that are sent to minister!

Margret, going down the stairs that morning, found none of the
chivalric unselfish glow of the night before in her home. It was
an old, bare house in the midst of dreary stubble fields, in
which her life was slowly to be worn out: working for those who
did not comprehend her; thanked her little,--that was all. It
did not matter; life was short: she could thank God for that at
least.

She opened the house-door. A draught of cold morning air struck
her face, sweeping from the west; it had driven the fog in great
gray banks upon the hills, or in shimmering swamps into the cleft
hollows: a vague twilight filled the space left bare. Tiger,
asleep in the hall, rushed out into the meadow, barking, wild
with the freshness and cold, then back again to tear round her
for a noisy good-morning. The touch of the dog seemed to bring
her closer to his master; she put him away; she dared not suffer
even that treachery to her purpose: the very circumstances that
had forced her to give him up made it weak cowardice to turn
again. It was a simple story, yet one which she dared not tell
to herself; for it was not altogether for her father's sake she
had made the sacrifice. She knew, that, though she might be near
to this man Holmes as his own soul, she was a clog on him,--stood
in his way,--kept him back. So she had quietly stood aside,
taken up her own solitary burden, and left him with his clear
self-reliant life,--with his Self, dearer to him than she had
ever been. Why should it not be dearer? She
thought,--remembering the man as he was, a master among men: fit
to be a master. She,--what was she compared to him? He was back