Mary knew what deep affection it must be to make this woman confess to such weakness. She came up to the chair where Catherine was sitting, and knelt before her. The woman kissed her on her forehead, and gently stroked the soft hair of the girl, feeling a tenderness in her heart that she had not known for many long years. "There can be no harm in our loving each other, I think, Mary," she said, doubtfully, and with a tremulousness in her one as of consciousness of guilt, as of one hesitating on the brink of some sweet, strong temptation to crime--"no harm--but we must not be too affectionate; we must not fear for each other, or we shall be unnerved when the battle begins. Now, Mary! don't! don't! My dear child, I cannot bear it!" for the girl had seized her hand and was kissing it passionately, while she shook with a paroxysm of sobs. "Oh, mother! mother! I am so miserable--without your love I should die! It is the only thing that makes life bearable. I cannot be strong and brave like you"--raising her head and looking admiringly at her through her tears--"but your love will make me braver too. Why are you not angry with me for being so silly and so weak?" The poor child hardly suspected herself what this longing for affection signified. She did not yet know her own heart altogether; she did not confess to herself that it was the strange, budding love of a maiden for a man that brought on this need for the sympathy of one of her own sex. "Weak, weak!" replied Catherine, pensively; "no I do not think that you are weak--the reverse in this case. These old moral instincts, or whatever we like to call them--this intense like to adopting means condemned by antique ethics, for the working of righteous ends, are difficult to contend with. You have strong instincts which are in opposition to your sense of duty. Had you been weaker-minded in this conflict, you would have abandoned duty and followed instinct. In you, both the sense of duty and the instinct are very strong. It is because of this--because your nature is strong and not weak--that the conflict for you is a terrible one--that you are a martyr--as such a martyr as Ridley or Latimer, who gave up all that natural instinct makes dear--even life, and things dearer than life, for duty's sake." Mary felt that what the Chief said was very true. The instinctive horror at the nature of her duties preyed on her mind; but she was ashamed as she considered that she was quite undeserving of these words of praise, knowing as she did that there was now another element that complicated the conflict, the nature of which her kind protectress little guessed.