After a time she opened the letter and read it.
It was from Bertie Lee-Harrison, who asked her to be his wife.
It was a long letter, and stated, amongst other things, that he had already obtained his uncle’s permission to address her.
Old Solomon’s words as to his grandson’s marriage flashed into her mind. It struck her that these plans for Reuben, for herself, were nothing less than an outrage.
It struck her also that she might marry Bertie.
All her courage had deserted her, all her daring of thought and feeling, in the face of a world where thought and feeling were kept apart from word and deed.
She too must fall down and worship at the shrine of the great god Expediency.
For how, otherwise, could she live her life?
Thrust out from Reuben’s friendship, from all that made her happiness; shorn of self-respect, of the respect of her world; how could she bear to go on in the old track?
To her blind misery, her ignorance, Bertie was nothing more than a polite little figure holding open for her a door of escape.