This, however, was not all or half the mental process he had to go through. He paused for her sake; yet not in this way could the reason of his hesitation be made clear to her. She would not mind being ‘compromised.’ She would not insist upon the fulfilment of their engagement. He had to think of some other reason to prove to her that it was better he should stay away. He made out his case for her, gradually, at more cost of thought than the plea which had convinced himself; but at the end it satisfied him as full of very cogent and effective reasoning. The whole matter opened up before him as he pondered it. He began to ask himself, to ask her, how he could, as a man of honour, hurry to Mount as soon as the breath was out of the body of the master of the house who had rejected and sent him away? How could he thrust himself into Mr. Mountford’s presence as soon as he was dead and incapable of resenting it--he, who when living would have refused to admit him, would have had nothing to say to him? He put back his money into his purse, and slowly undid his bag and threw out his linen as these thoughts arose and shaped themselves in his mind. In either point of view it would be impossible to do it; in either point of view manly self-denial, honour, and consideration for all parties required that in this emergency he should not think of what was pleasant either to her or himself. It was a crisis too important for the mere action of instinctive feelings. Of course he would like to be with her--of course she would like to have him by her. But here was something more than what they would like--a world of things to be considered. To say that Cosmo, deep down at the bottom of his heart, was not aware that there might be another larger, simpler mode of considering the question which would sweep all these intellectual cobwebs away and carry him off in a moment to Anne’s side, to stand by her in defiance of all prudential motives, would be untrue. It is the curse of sophistry that this sense of something better, this consciousness of a fundamental flaw in its arguments, is seldom quite obliterated; but at the same time it was far more in accordance with his nature to act according to the more elaborate, and not according to the simpler system. He satisfied himself, if not completely, yet sufficiently to reconcile himself to what he was doing; and he satisfied Anne so far at least as her first response, her first apprehension was concerned. ‘Dear Cosmo, you are right, you are right, you are more than right, as you always are,’ she had said with a kind of enthusiasm, in her first letter. ‘They say that women have more delicate perceptions, but that only shows how little people know. I see in a moment the truth and the wisdom and the fine honour of what you say. I am capable of understanding it at least, but I feel how far you go beyond me in delicacy of feeling as well as in other things. No, no! you must not come; respect for my dear father forbids