ruler; that his was a spirit before which hers would bend and feel
itself subdued. With him she could realize all that she had dreamed
of woman's love, and that dream which is so sweet to some women--of
woman's subjugation. But could it be the same with him to whom she
was now positively affianced, with him to whom she knew that she did
now owe all her duty? She feared that it was not the same.

And then again she swore that she loved him. She thought over all
his excellences; how good he was as a son--how fondly his sisters
loved him--how inimitable was his conduct in these hard trying
times. And she remembered also that it was right in every way that
she should love him. Her mother and brother approved of it. Those
who were to be her new relatives approved of it. It was in every way
fitting. Pecuniary considerations were so favourable! But when she
thought of that her heart sank low within her breast. Was it true
that she had sold herself at her mother's bidding? Should not the
remembrance of Owen's poverty have made her true to him had nothing
else done so?

But be all that as it might, one thing, at any rate, was clear to
her, that it was now her fate, her duty--and, as she repeated again
and again, her wish to marry Herbert. No thought of rebellion
against him and her mother ever occurred to her as desirable or
possible. She would be to him a true and loving wife, a wife in very
heart and soul. But, nevertheless, walking thus beneath those trees,
she could not but think of Owen Fitzgerald.

In this mood she had gone twice down from the house to the lodge and
back again, and now again she had reached the lodge the third time,
making thus her last journey for in these solitary walks her work