He did think of them. But he found it to be impossible to put absolute faith in them. It was not that he thought that his sister was deceiving him, that he distrusted her who had taken this long journey at great personal trouble altogether on his behalf; but that he could not bring himself to believe that he himself had been so cruel as to reject his young wife without adequate cause. It had gradually come across his mind that he had been most cruel, most unjust,--if he had done so; and to this judgment, passed by himself on himself, he would not submit. In concealing her engagement she had been very wrong, but it must be that she had concealed more than her engagement. And to have been engaged to such a man added much to the fault in his estimation. He would not acknowledge that she had been deceived as to the man's character and had set herself right before it was too late. Why had the man come to his house and asked for him,--after what had passed between them,--if not in compliance with some understanding between him and her? But yet he would take her back if she would confess her fault and beg his pardon,--for then he would be saved the disgrace of having to acknowledge that he had been in fault from the first. His sister left him alone without saying a word on the subject for twenty-four hours, and then again attacked him. "George," she said, "I must go back to-morrow. I have left my children all alone and cannot stay longer away from them." "Must you go to-morrow?" he asked. "Indeed, yes. Had not the matter been one of almost more than life and death I should not have come. Am I to return and feel that my journey has been for nothing?" "What would you have me do?" "Return with me, and go at once to Exeter." He almost tore his hair in his agony as he walked about the room before he replied to her. But she remained silent, watching him. "You must leave me here till I think about it." "Then I might as well not have come at all," she said.