That little touch of affection from her daughter had stirred Mrs. Throgmorton's heart. Unable to restrain herself, she had taken Mary's hands again with a closer warmth in her own.
"Ah, more blessed, dear--yes--there is of course the pleasure of blessedness, the satisfaction of duty uncomplainingly done. I have never denied that."
She had spoken this triumphantly, feeling that light at last had been shown in answer to her prayer. Not for a moment was she expectant of her daughter's reply.
"I don't mean that, mother," Mary had said. "Satisfaction seems to me a thing you know in your own heart. No one can share it with you. Of course I don't know the feelings of a man, how could I? I'm not married. But if I were a man it wouldn't give me any pleasure to think that the woman I loved was just satisfied because she'd done her duty. I should want to share my pleasure with her, not look on at a distance at her satisfaction. If a man ever loves me, I believe I shall feel what he feels and if I do, I shall be glad of it and make him glad too."
She had said it all without emotion, almost without one note of feeling in her voice; but the mere words themselves were sufficient to strike terror into Mrs. Throgmorton's heart. That terror showed itself undisguised in her face.
"My dear--my dear--" she whispered--"I pray God you never do feel so, or if it be His will you should, that you will never forget your modesty or your self-respect so much as to reveal it to any man however much you may love him."
To these four girls in that square, white house in Bridnorth, this was such an influence as still reigned in undisputed sway. The eyes of their parents from those portraits still looked down upon them at their prayers or at their meals. Still the voice of Mrs. Throgmorton whispered in Mary's ears--"I pray God you will never forget your modesty or your self-respect." Still, even when she was twenty-nine, Mary's eyes would lift to her father's face gazing down from the wall upon her, wondering if he had ever known the life she had suspicion of from the books she read. Still she would glance at them both, prepared to believe that, however dominant it was in their home, the expression of their lives had been only the husk of existence.
And then perhaps at that very moment the coach might pass by on its way to the Royal George and the horses' hoofs would sing as they beat upon the road--"Life is ours--we are here to live--Life is ours--we are here to live."
Yet there in Bridnorth at twenty-nine, no greater impetus had come to her to live than the most vague wonderings, the most transient of dreams.
VIII