loved him all his life; but a preoccupied mind is always unnatural. They were as strangers to him now. CHAPTER XV. Saturday morning! very bright but cold, a sprinkling of snow on the ground, crisp and slight like a permanent hoar frost, the trees all frosted, too, with edges of white, like the lights in a snow-landscape. Nancy in her blackness came out doubly distinct upon this white background, the long sweeping line of her simple dress and cloak, her face all glowing with animation and health, and repressed excitement. Pleasure, yet pain, a happy sense of having pleased, an eager wistful longing to please more, were all mingled with the feeling that she stood on the edge of an abyss, and that nothing could excuse this deception, except the fact that it was for once, only for once, and that when that was over, all should be told. She kissed her sister as she went out, which was very unusual for her. “Think of me, till I come back,” she said. Nancy felt that as yet there had been no more desperate moment in her life. She was not afraid of it, and yet she was all one pulsation, all one throb. She could scarcely speak to the people she met on the road, but nodded, with a wistful sense of friendliness. If they were all to think kindly of her, would not that support her in the present trial, and those that were still harder that must come after? For after she had done this, all would be over, there would be no more excuse for staying here. She could not live under the shadow of their wing, and go on deceiving them. And she had got to be “fond” of Oakley. It was Arthur’s place, where everybody knew him, and to live there was a protection to her, a shield to her imprudence, whatever happened. What else had she in the world? even if Matilda left her she might have gone on there, living quietly; but for that deception which she could not keep up, which she would take advantage of this once--only this once, but no more. This was one of the rare cases in which the person most immediately concerned judged herself more hardly than others did. Neither Durant nor Lucy blamed her for living here secretly; but rather were both touched by the idea that she wished thus unknown to recommend herself humbly to the good opinion of her husband’s parents; but Nancy’s simpler straightforward mind felt the tacit falsehood of her position to be untenable. Whatever advantages it might bring her, her duty was to tell the truth, and take the consequences. She had done much that was wrong; but she had never told a lie.