made: it would have been impossible to
move Mrs. Ashurst in her then state to
Berlin, and she could not have gone
without her; so that Walter must either
have gone alone, or the marriage must
have been deferred. And then the income
—four hundred a year. It was very good,
no doubt, in comparison to what they had
been existing on since papa's death— very
superior to anything they could have
expected, quite a sufficiency for one or two
young people to begin life upon; but for
three, and the third one an invalid, in a
foreign country! No; it was quite impossible.
Marian looked round the room as
she said these words; her eyes lighted on
the bright furniture, the pretty prints that
adorned the walls, the elegant ornaments
and knick-knacks scattered about, the
hundred evidences of wealth and taste which
were henceforth to be at her entire
command, and repeated, "Quite impossible!"
more decisively than before. By this time
she was quite herself again, had removed
every trace of her recent discomposure, and
had made up her mind definitively as to her
future. Only one thing troubled her;
what should be her immediate treatment of
Walter Joyce? Should she ignore the
receipt of his letter, leave it unanswered,
take the chance of his understanding from
her silence that all was over between them?
Or should she write to him, telling him
exactly what had happened putting it, of
course, in the least objectionable way for
herself? Or should she temporise, giving
her mother's delicate state of health and
impossibility of removal abroad as the
ground of her declining to be married at
once, as he required, and beginning, by
various hints, which she thought she could
manage cleverly enough, to pave the way
for the announcement, to be delayed as long
as practicable, that their engagement was
over, and that she was going to marry
some one else? At first she was strongly
inclined to act upon the last of these three
motives, thinking that it would be easier to
screen herself, or, at all events to bear the
brunt of Joyce's anger when he was abroad.
But, after a little consideration, a better
spirit came over her. She had to do what
was a bad thing at best; she would do it
in the least offensive manner possible; she
would write to him.

She sat down at the little, ink-bespattered,
old-fashioned writing-desk which she had
had for so many years, on which she had
written so often to her lover, and which
contained a little packet of his letters,
breathing of hope and trust and
deep-rooted affection in every line, and wrote:

"Woolgreaves, Sunday.

"My dear Walter, — I have something to
tell you which you must know at once. I
can approach the subject in no roundabout
fashion, because I know it will cause you a
great shock, and it is better for you to
know it at once. I do not pretend to any
doubt about the pain and grief which I am
sure it will cause you. I will tell you my reasons
for the step I am about to take when I
tell you what I have already done. Walter, I
have broken my engagement with you. I
have promised to marry Mr. Creswell.

"I write this to you at once, almost
directly after he proposed to me, and I have
accepted him. Does it seem harsh and
coarse in me to announce this to you so
immediately? Believe me, the announcement
is made from far different motives.
I could not bear to be deceiving you. You
will sneer at this, and say I have been
deceiving you all along; I swear I have
not. You will think that the very silence for
which you reproached me in the letter just
received has been owing to my dislike to
tell you of the change in affairs. I swear
it has not. I had no idea until this morning
that Mr. Creswell liked me in any
especial way; certainly none that he would
ever ask me to become his wife.

"When he asked me, I had not had your
letter. If I had, it would have made no
difference in the answer I made to Mr.
Creswell, but it deepens the pain with
which I now write to you, showing me, as
it does to an extent which I did not before
quite realise, the store which you set by
what is now lost to us for ever. I do not
say this in excuse of myself, or my deeds; I
have no excuse to make. I have tried, and
tried hard, to live in the position of life in
which I have been placed. I have struggled
with poverty, and tried to face the
future — which would have been worse than
poverty, penury, misery, want perhaps—
with calmness. I have failed. I cannot
help it, it is my nature to love money and
all that money brings, to love comforts and
luxuries, to shrink from privation. Had I
gone straight from my father's death-bed to
your house as your wife, I might perhaps
have battled on, but we came here, and I
cannot go back. You will be far happier
without me when your first shock is over.
I should have been an impossible wife for a
poor man. I know I should — complaining,
peevish, irritable. Ever repining at my