and that it was she who should have done this had not only her husband, but all the powers of the earth gone against it. Then Lily reflected, with the impulse of self-defence, that she had no money, and did not know how to get any, and that it would have been hard, very hard for her, without her present enlightenment, to have gone against Ronald, to have flown in his face and thwarted him so completely in a matter upon which he had so firmly made up his mind. Oh, what a difference there was between the Lily of that time--hesitating, miserable to yield and yet unable to resist, not knowing how to take a great step on her own authority, to oppose her husband and all the lesser chain of circumstances, the unconscious influence even of the women who held her with a softer bond of watchfulness and affection--and this Lily now, braced to any effort, having withdrawn and separated herself from him and from every other restraint of influence, as she thought, standing alone against all the world, deeply disenchanted, and considering every pretence of love and happiness as false and deceitful. Had it been now how little would she have hesitated! But was not this the bitterness of life: that it was then only she could have acted effectually, and not now? She settled down to the winter at Dalrugas with these thoughts. She was Miss Ramsay, the daughter and the mistress of the house. She did not know and did not care what was thought of her in the countryside. If stories were told of the gentleman who had come so often from Edinburgh, but now came no longer, Lily heard none of them. Some faltering questions from Helen Blythe, who, instinctively, though she did not know why, never referred to Ronald in presence of Sir Robert, were all the indications she ever had that his disappearance was commented on, and Lily did not care who spoke of Ronald, or how or where their secret might be betrayed; and this indifference delivered her from many doubts and questionings. She had no objection that any body should tell in detail the whole thing to Sir Robert. She held her head very proudly above all terrors of being found out. She was afraid of nothing now. Every thing, she thought, had happened that could happen. She was separated from her husband, not by any formality, not by any such motive as had kept the secret hitherto, but by a great gulf fixed, which Lily felt it was impossible should ever be bridged over. He had wronged her as surely never woman had been wronged before, lied to her, made her herself a lie, deprived her--last and greatest wrong of all--of her child. Oh, how much time, leisure, quiet, she had to think over and over all these thoughts, to persuade herself that happiness and truth were mere words, and that nothing but falsehood flourished in this world! Gradually she sank into silence on the subject even to Beenie. Her life-history, over, as it seemed, at twenty-five, dropped out of knowledge as if it had never been. She received no letters.