"No, it is not that; I am thinking of you seriously, Katharine, and wondering whether I am doing right by you. I had no doubt, when you came to me, and claimed the fulfilment of the promise I made to you at Martigny--there was such desperation, such utter self-abandonment about you--that I, who knew the symptoms of despair, and their deadliness, could not hesitate about what was to be done. But now, Katharine, now, has not time made any difference?--it has made a great alteration in you, my dear--a very great and blessed change; not time alone, I know, but life and suffering and self-knowledge, and a higher wisdom still--has it not changed circumstances too? You told me your return to your husband's home was an impossibility then; and I knew, I felt it was so. You never told me why; you never placed the secret of his sin, whatever it may have been, in my possession. Now I ask you--the matter has been pressing long upon my mind, and is daily growing heavier--is the same impossibility in force still?" Katharine did not make any answer, but she looked at him, pale and tearful. Then he continued: "Think of your youth, Katharine. Your life is almost all before you; and you have no friend but me. Supposing I were to die, my dear, how would it be with you then? For though you are not so helpless and so ignorant of the world's ways as when you came to me that winter's night, and told me I must hide you, and that without a question, and I did it--you are as little fitted as any woman I know for the loneliness of a friendless life. Is this offence quite past forgiveness? is there no way of reconciliation?" "None, none," she murmured. "O, do not talk to me of the past." "Katharine," he said, with deeper solemnity still, "think, be very sure, before you answer. Remember that nothing but the extremest injury can justify the course you are pursuing. Your name is false, your position is false, your very dress"--he stretched out his hand and touched it--"is a lie!" "My widowhood at least is real," she said in an abrupt and bitter tone. "My poor child, I don't doubt that. I know it is; but the evils dealt by man's hand are often of God's sending. Are you resisting God, and not man only? I am talking to you in the dark about many things, but there are some broad truths applicable to all circumstances. One of them is, that no self-imposed duties can stand in the place of those which God has appointed. When I watch--and I watch it closely--your exemplary life of usefulness, your self-denial, your promptitude in doing good--and see that you are not at peace in it, I cannot but think that you are doing this--that you are trying to do your own will, and not God's will; and that you are reaping the inevitable consequences." Her head was bowed now, and she was crying.