"I have been very wicked," she said to herself; "and he is so good to me!
If I could only teach myself to love him."
She knew now that the weakness which had made her so plastic a creature in
her father's hands had been an injustice to her husband; that it was not
herself only she had been bound to consider in this matter. It was one
thing to fling away her own chances of happiness; but it was another thing
to jeopardise the peace of the man she married.
She was meditating on these things with a hopeless sense of confusion--a
sense that her married life was like some dreadful labyrinth, into which
she had strayed unawares, and from which there was no hope of escape--when
she was startled by an approaching footstep, and, looking up suddenly,
saw George Fairfax coming slowly towards her, just as she had seen him in
Marley Wood that summer day. How far away from her that day seemed now!
They had not met since that night in the orchard, nearly two years ago.
She felt her face changing from pale to burning red, and then growing pale
again. But by a great effort she was able to answer him in a steady voice
presently when he spoke to her.
"What a happiness to see you again, my dear Mrs. Granger!" he said in his
lightest tone, dropping quietly down into the seat by her side. "I was told
you were to be here to-day, or I should not have come; I am so heartily
sick of all this kind of thing.
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