“Yes,” she said, “it is all over. I shall never see him again on this side of heaven’s gates.” We do not know that we ever saw a tear in her eyes produced by her own sorrow. She was possessed of some wonderful strength which seemed to suffice for the bearing of any burden. Then she paused, and we could only sit silent, with our eyes fixed upon the rug. “I have made him a promise,” she said at last. Of course we asked her what was the promise, though at the moment we thought that we knew. “I will make no more attempt at novel writing.” “Such a promise should not have been asked,--or given,” we said vehemently. “It should have been asked,--because he thought it right,” she answered. “And of course it was given. Must he not know better than I do? Is he not one of God’s ordained priests? In all the world is there one so bound to obey him as I?” There was nothing to be said for it at such a moment as that. There is no enthusiasm equal to that produced by a death-bed parting. “I grieve greatly,” she said, “that you should have had so much vain labour with a poor girl who can never profit by it.” “I don’t believe the labour will have been vain,” we answered, having altogether changed those views of ours as to the futility of the pursuit which she had adopted. “I have destroyed it all,” she said. “What;--burned the novel?” “Every scrap of it. I told him that I would do so, and that he should know that I had done it. Every page was burned after I got home last night, and then I wrote to him before I went to bed.” “Do you mean that you think it wicked that people should write novels?” we asked. “He thinks it to be a misapplication of God’s gifts, and that has been enough for me. He shall judge for me, but I will not judge for others. And what does it matter? I do not want to write a novel now.” They remained in London till the end of the year for which the married curate had taken their house, and then they returned to Cornboro. We saw them frequently while they were still in town, and despatched them by the train to the north just when the winter was beginning. At that time the young clergyman was still living down in Dorsetshire, but he was lying in his grave when Christmas came. Mary never saw him again, nor did she attend his funeral. She wrote to us frequently then, as she did for years afterwards. “I should have liked to have stood at his grave,” she said; “but it was a luxury of sorrow that I wished to enjoy, and they who cannot earn luxuries should not have them. They were going to manage it for me here, but I knew I was right to refuse it.” Right, indeed! As far as we knew her, she never moved a single point from what was right.