She was married
to a man whom she could respect for many qualities of his heart and mind,
against whom she could never seriously offend. Was it so great a sin if the
friendship of George Fairfax was dear to her? if the few happy hours of her
life were those she spent in his company? But such special pleading as this
was the poorest sophistry; at heart she was conscious that it was so. A
woman has a double conscience, as it were--a holy of holies within the
temple of her mind, to which falsehood cannot enter. She may refuse to lift
the screen, and meet the truth face to face; but it is there--not to be
extinguished--eternal, immutable; the divine lamp given for her guidance,
if only she will not withdraw herself from its light.
Just a little less than a month before his intended departure, Mr. Granger
had a letter from that exacting bailiff, entreating his return. Something
in the scientific farming had gone wrong, some great sewage question was at
issue, and none but the lord of the soil himself could settle the matter.
Very dear to Daniel Granger were those lands of Arden, that Arden-Court
estate which he had made to spread itself so far over the face of the
county. Sweet are ancestral domains, no doubt; dear by association, made
holy by the pride of the race; but perhaps sweeter to the soul of man are
those acres he has won by the work of his own strong hand, or his own
steadfast brain.
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