“It is nearly ended, Laurence,” said Mrs. Jerningham, when they were gone. She looked up at Mr. Desmond with a tender, earnest look, and held out her wasted hand. He took the pale, semi-transparent hand and raised it to his lips. “What is nearly ended, my dear Emily?” he asked, gently. “Your bondage.” “God forbid, if that means that I am to lose you.” “Yes, Laurence, that is inevitable. I doubt if the knot could ever have been disentangled; but it can be cut. Death makes an easy end of many difficulties; and I think nothing less than death could have ended our perplexities. I am not going to preach a sermon, dear friend. I only want you to understand that my doom is sealed, and that I know it is so, and am not altogether sorry.” “Oh, Emily, what a bitter reproof to me!” “No, Laurence, a reproof to myself. My own short-sighted selfishness has been the cause of all our sufferings; for we have suffered acutely, both of us. I had no right to absorb your life; no right to hinder you from forming ties without which the most prosperous life seems blank and dreary; no right to stand between you and a home. But it is all over. I am drifting out of the troubled sea into a quiet harbour, and I can afford to be, not generous, but just.” “Emily!” “Hear me patiently, dear. I will not talk of these things again. I know where your heart has been given, and what a pure unselfish love you have, almost unconsciously, won for yourself. I knew of that innocent love months ago; but I only knew your sentiments on the day of our Chertsey picnic. I was in the fernery when you told Lucy your secret. Yes, Laurence, I listened. It was a contemptible act, of course; but I was too desperate to consider that. I heard all you said--all. I heard enough to know your devotion, your generosity; to hate my own selfishness. All that day I felt myself the vilest of creatures. I knew that it was my duty to set you free; but I shrank, with a miserable cowardly shrinking, from the sacrifice. I knew that for you and me together there could be no such thing as happiness, either in the present or the future; but I was capable of chaining you to my wretchedness rather than of seeing you happy with another. All that is most base and selfish in my nature was in the ascendant that day. No words can tell how I struggled with my wickedness. I was not strong enough to vanquish it. I knew that it was my duty to surrender every claim upon you; but I could not bring myself to face that duty. From the maze of my perplexities, extrication seemed impossible. Happily for all of us, Providence has given me a means of escape. I may keep you my prisoner to the end of my life, Laurence, and yet be guilty of no supreme selfishness, for my days are numbered.” “My dear Emily, why imagine this?”