“Oh, Nevile,” she said, with a quivering lip, “don't let us look back. Indeed, I can't do it now.” He put his arm round her and, drawing her closer, kissed her forehead. “My pretty one, we won't. I had much rather look forward. The future is to be my affair--if the past was yours.” Then he went away, and she saw nothing of him for two days. On the second of them he dined with Lady Maria, and met some of the Percivals--the father and mother, the Sinclairs, and Mr. Tompsett-King. (Philippa had declined to come.) He behaved with great discretion, and so continued. After a week or ten days of courtship, she could hardly believe that their relations had ever been interrupted. His reliance upon her was absolute, his confidence no less so. He babbled of himself and his concerns in the old vein of mocking soliloquy, careless whether she heard him or not. Now that he had her promise, he seemed in no hurry for possession. His kisses were fraternal, his embraces confined to a hand on her shoulder, an arm lightly about her waist. She was inordinately thankful to him, and by a queer freak of the mind, poured all her gratitude into Senhouse. She told herself that but for him she would never have brought herself to her duty; but for him, therefore, would never have discovered how little she had to fear. Here was a crown for her “dear obsequious head”: shutting her eyes tightly, she thought that she could feel his fingers putting it on, smoothing out her hair so that the circlet should fit closely. Night after night she knelt to receive it. It came as a result of prayer. The marriage-announcement, got into the paper by Mrs. Percival, was accepted for what it was worth. It was partly the price of her crown. A few letters from old friends were formally answered. Sanchia had never been a free writer; nobody but Senhouse had found her letters eloquent--he only had been able to feel the throb beneath the stiff lines. Her handwriting, round and firm, had for him a provocative quality; it stung his imagination. He used to sing her “divine frugality of utterance,” and protest that it was all of a piece with the rest of her life. No one, he had told her once, but a sculptor could embody her in Art--her chill perfection, her severity and definite outline. A poet might not dare, for he would have to be greater than love itself, greater than the love which inspired him, able to put it down below him, and stand remote from it, and regard it as a speck in the landscape. Your sober thought, and your pride To nurse the passion you hold and hide he had written of her in his day. That austere concealment of her heart, which so impassioned him, chilled enthusiasm in all others of her acquaintance. So her letters were few, and now she was thankful enough. She herself wrote to nobody, and never spoke of her future unless she was compelled to answer questions.