310 [January 28, 1860.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

"I shall lower myself indeed, if I gain my
release by hiding from him what he has a right
to know."

"He has not the shadow of a right to know
it!"

"Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive
no one—least of all, the man to whom my father
gave me and to whom I gave myself." She put
her lips to mine, and kissed me. " My own
love," she said, softly, "you are so much too
fond of me and so much too proud of me, that
you forget in my case, what you would remem-
ber in your own. Better that Sir Percival should
doubt my motives and misjudge my conduct, if
he will, than that I should be first false to him
in thought, and then mean enough to serve my
own interests by hiding the falsehood."

I held her away from me in astonishment.
Por the first time in our lives, we had changed
places; the resolution was all on her side, the
hesitation all on mine. I looked into the pale,
quiet, resigned young face; I saw the pure, in-
nocent heart, in the loving eyes that looked
back at me and the poor, worldly cautions
and objections that rose to my lips, dwindled
and died away in their own emptiness. I hung
my head in silence. In her place, the despi-
cably small pride which makes so many women
deceitful, would have been my pride, and would
have made me deceitful, too.

"Don't be angry with me, Marian," she said,
mistaking my silence.

I only answered by drawing her close to me
again. I was afraid of crying if I spoke. My
tears do not flow so easily as they ought they
come, almost like men's tears, with sobs that
seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten
every one about me.

"I have thought of this, love, for many days,"
she went on, twining and twisting my hair, with
that childish restlessness in her fingers, which
poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so
vainly to cure her of—  "I have thought of it
very seriously, and I can be sure of my courage,
when my own conscience tells me I am right.
Let me speak to him to-morrow—in your pre-
sence, Marian. I will say nothing that is wrong,
nothing that you or I need be ashamed of—but,
oh, it will ease my heart so to end this miserable
concealment! Only let me know and feel that I
have no deception to answer for on my side;
and then, when he has heard what I have to
say, let him act towards me as he will."

She sighed, and put her head back in its old
position on my bosom. Sad misgivings about
what the end would be, weighed on my mind; but,
still distrusting myself, I told her that I would
do as she wished. She thanked me, and we
passed gradually into talking of other things.

At dinner she joined us again, and was more
easy and more herself with Sir Percival, than I
have seen her yet. In the evening she went to
the piano, choosing new music of the dexterous,
tuneless, florid kind. The lovely old melodies
of Mozart, which poor Hartright was so fond of,
she has never played since heleft. The book is
no longer in the music-stand. She took the

volume away herself, so that nobody might find
it out and ask her to play from it.

I had no opportunity, of discovering whether
her purpose of the morning had changed or not,
until she wished Sir Percival good night and
then her own words informed me that it was
unaltered. She said, very quietly, that she
wished to speak to him, after breakfast, and that
he would find her in her sitting-room with me.
He changed colour at those words, and I felt
his hand trembling a little when it came to my
turn to take it. The event of the next morning
would decide his future life; and he evidently
knew it.

I went in, as usual, through the door between
our two bedrooms, to bid Laura good night
before she went to sleep. In stooping over her
to kiss her, I saw the little book of Hartright's
drawings half hidden under her pillow, just in
the place where she used to hide her favourite
toys when she was a child. I could not find it
in my heart to say anything; but I pointed to
the book and shook my head. She reached both
hands up to my cheeks, and drew my face down
to hers till our lips met.

"Leave it there, to-night," she whispered;
"to-morrow may be cruel, and may make me
say good-by to it for ever."

8th.—The first event of the morning was not
of a kind to raise my spirits; a letter arrived
for me, from poor Walter Hartright. It is
the answer to mine, describing the manner in
which Sir Percival cleared himself of the sus-
picions raised by Anne Catherick's letter. He
writes shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival's
explanations; only saying that he has no right
to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who
are above him. This is sad; but his occasional
references to himself grieve me still more. He
says that the effort to return to his old habits
and pursuits, grows harder instead of easier to
him, every day; and he implores me, if I have
any interest, to exert it to get him employment
that will necessitate his absence from England,
and take him among new scenes and new people.
I have been made all the readier to comply with
this request, by a passage at the end of his letter,
which has almost alarmed me.

After mentioning that he has neither seen nor
heard anything of Anne Catherick, he suddenly
breaks off, and hints in the most abrupt, myste-
rious manner, that he has been perpetually
watched and followed by strange men, ever
since he returned to London. He acknowledges
that he cannot prove this extraordinary suspi-
cion by fixing on any particular persons; but
he declares that the suspicion itself is present
to him night and day. This has frightened me,
because it looks as if his one fixed idea about
Laura was becoming too much for his mind. I
will write immediately to some of my mother's
influential old friends in London, and press his
claims on their notice. Change of scene and
change of occupation may really be the salvation
of him at this crisis in his life.

Greatly to my relief, Sir Percival sent an