her. But the sense of having done right sufficed him no more than the
sense of having got the better of St. John. What was lacking to him? In
the casuistry of the moment, which was perhaps rather emotional than
rational, it appeared to Hewson that he had again a duty toward Miss
Hernshaw, and that his feeling of dissatisfaction was the first effect of
its non-fulfilment. But it was clearly impossible that he should go again
to see her, and tell her what had passed between him and St. John, and it
was clearly impossible that he should write and tell her what it was
quite as clearly her right to know from him. If he went to her, or wrote
to her, he felt himself in danger of wanting to shine in the affair, as
her protector against the rapacity of St. John, and as the man of
superior quality who had outwitted a greedy fellow. The fear that she
might not admire his splendor in either sort caused him to fall somewhat
nervelessly back upon Providence; but if the moral government of the
universe finally favored him it was not by traversing any of its own
laws. By the time he had determined to achieve both the impossibilities
which formed his dilemma--had decided to write to Miss Hernshaw and call
upon her, and leave his letter in the event of failing to find her--his
problem was as far solved as it might be, by the arrival of a note from
Miss Hernshaw herself, hoping that he would come to see her on business
of pressing importance.

She received him without any pretence of Mrs. Rock's intermediary
presence, and put before him a letter which she had received, before
writing him, from St. John, and which she could not answer without first
submitting it to him. It was a sufficiently straightforward expression of
his regret that he could not accept her very generous offer for St.
Johnswort because the place was already sold. He had the taste to forbear
any allusion to the motives which (she told Hewson) she had said prompted
her offer; but then he became very darkling and sinuous in a suggestion