Rosalie was, as has been seen, very impressionable, very emotional—in a word, very womanly; but for all that there was at her heart’s core the little kernel of strength which is to be found in the hearts of most good women—an instinctive sense of rectitude, the love of duty for duty’s sake, even when the accomplishment of it involves great sacrifice. She looked Richard full in the face now. ‘No,’ she said; ‘I will not take any happiness that has to be bought by doing wrong. I made my own choice and fixed my lot in life before I knew you, and now I will abide by it.’ The very severity of the struggle gave her courage, and Richard, all passion-swayed as he was, had in him a certain element of chivalrousness that responded to the effort she was making. He was silent, and Rosalie, quick to perceive her advantage, went on eagerly: ‘I ask you to leave me, Richard; I want you to go now. It is quite true that you have a kind of power over me, and that if you’—her voice faltered for a moment, but she steadied it—‘if you go on urging me and persuading me you will very likely make me give in in the end; but I ask you, _because_ you love me, not to do this. We could not be really happy if—if we came together through being dishonourable and ungrateful. It is better to do right at all costs. As for me, I mean to keep my word to your uncle. I will try my best to make him a good wife and to forget you.’ ‘And have you thought,’ returned he, with a bitterness which he could not control—‘have you thought at all of what is to become of me? The whole thing is absurd,’ he went on with increasing irritation. ‘Do you think for a moment that my uncle could suffer a tithe of what I shall suffer? You know very well he is not capable of it. Besides—’ He broke off. ‘I know what you mean,’ said Rosalie, colouring faintly. ‘He would not have thought of marrying me if I had not first suggested it. But I did suggest it, and he is very fond of me now.’ ‘Fond!’ echoed the young man scornfully. ‘Yes, as fond as it is in his nature to be. He has been faithful to me, and I will be faithful to him. I will do nothing that could pain or humiliate him. Some day you too will feel glad that you have not injured your benefactor.’ ‘Then what do you want me to do?’ said Richard, still half sullenly, though she saw by his face that her words had struck home. ‘I want you to go away now—go quite away as you intended—as fast as you can—before—before anything happens to make us change our minds.’ In the words, in her pleading eyes there was that same piteous confession of weakness which had before touched Richard, and which now roused afresh his most generous instincts. ‘I will do what you wish,’ he said. ‘You are a good woman, Rosalie; I—will go.’ ‘To-night?’ ‘Yes; now!’ She glanced at him quickly, opened her mouth as if to speak, and then turned away without carrying out her intention.