had learned from her the secret of her heart, he had not taught
himself to understand how his own sullen silence had acted upon her.
He knew now that she had continued to love him; but he did not know
how natural it had been that she should have believed that he had
forgotten her. He could not, therefore, understand how different
must now be her feelings in reference to this marriage with Adrian,
from what they had been when she had believed herself to be utterly
deserted. And then he did not comprehend how thoroughly unselfish
she had been;--how she had struggled to do her duty to others, let
the cost be what it might to herself. She had plighted herself to
Adrian Urmand, not because there had seemed to her to be any
brightness in the prospect which such a future promised to her, but
because she did verily believe that, circumstanced as she was, it
would be better that she should submit herself to her friends. All
this George Voss did not understand. He had thrown his thunderbolt,
and had seen that it had been efficacious. Its efficacy had been
such that his wrath had been turned into tenderness. He had been so
changed in his purpose, that he had been induced to make an appeal
to his father at the cost of his father's enmity. But that appeal
had been in vain, and, as he thought of it all, he told himself that
on the appointed day Marie Bromar would become the wife of Adrian
Urmand. He knew well enough that a girl betrothed is a girl already
half married.

He was very wretched as he drove his horse along. Though there was
a solace in the thought that the memory of him had still remained in
Marie's heart, there was a feeling akin to despair in this also.
His very tenderness towards her was more unendurable than would have
been his wrath. The pity of it! The pity of it! It was that which
made him sore of heart and faint of spirit. If he could have