My inheritance had come. There was nothing wonderful about it--it was my right; but never did inheritance come at a more suitable moment. Charley went back with me that afternoon, after a hurried conference with his young brothers, who came round me, shaking my arms nearly off, and calling to each other in their soft young basses, like rolls of mild thunder, that, whatever happened, I was a good fellow, a true friend. If they had not been so bashful they would have embraced me, less, I verily believe, from the sense of escape from a great misery which they had scarcely realised, than from generous pleasure in what they thought a sort of noble generosity. That was their view of it. Charley perhaps was more enlightened. He was very silent during the journey, but at one point of it burst out suddenly upon me. “You are doing this for Chatty, Temple. If you take her away, it will be as bad as losing Ellermore.” I shook my head. Then, if never before, I felt the hopelessness of the position. “There is but one thing you can do for me: say not a word of that to her,” I said. And I believe he kept counsel. It was of her own accord that Charlotte came up to me after the hurried interview in which Charley laid my proposal before her. She was very grave, though the sweetness of her look drew the heart out of my breast. She held out her hands to me, but her eyes took all warm significance out of this gesture. “Mr. Temple,” she said, “you may think me bold to say it, but we are friends that can say anything to one another. If in your great generosity there may yet be a thought--a thought that a woman might recompense what was done for her and hers”--Her beautiful countenance, beautiful in its love and tenderness and noble dignity, but so pale, was suddenly suffused with colour. She took her hands out of mine, and folded them together--“That is out of my power--that is out of my power!” she said. “I like it better so,” I cried. God help me! it was a lie, and so she knew. “I want no recompense. I will be recompensed enough to know you are here.” And so it has remained ever since, and may, perhaps, for ever--I cannot tell. We are dear friends. When anything happens in the family I am sent for, and all is told to me. And so do I with her. We know all each other’s secrets--those secrets which are not of fortune or incident, but of the soul. Is there anything better in marriage than this? And yet there is a longing which is human for something more.