For his sake had she not given up
her uncle and her aunt, and St John and St Nicholas--and the very
Virgin herself, whose picture she had now removed from the wall
beside her bed to a dark drawer? How could she give up that which was
everything she had in the world--the very life of her bosom? "I will
ask him--him himself," she said at last, hoarsely. "I will ask him, and
do as he bids me. I cannot do anything unless it is as he bids me."
"In this matter you must act on your own judgment, Nina."
"No, I will not. I have no judgment. He must judge for me in
everything. If he says it is better that we should part, then--then--
then I will let him go."
After this Rebecca left the room and the house. Before she went, she
kissed the Christian girl; but Nina did not remember that she had been
kissed. Her mind was so full, not of thought, but of the suggestion
that had been made to her, that it could now take no impression from
anything else. She had been recommended to do a thing as her duty--as
a paramount duty towards him who was everything to her--the doing of
which it would be impossible that she should survive.
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