"My goodness, Charlotte! How seriously you speak!"
"It is a serious subject. I want to try to live so as to do my duty by myself and by those around me; to pass my days in peace with the world and with my conscience. A woman beaten down, cowed by all sorts of ills, could not do so; and, where the husband is unsteady, she must be beaten down. Adam, you know it is not with a willing heart I give you up, but I am forced to it."
"How can you bring yourself to say this to me?" he rejoined.
"I don't deny that it is hard," she faintly said, suppressing with difficulty her emotion. "This many a week I and duty have been having a conflict with each other: but duty has gained the mastery. I knew it would from the first——"
"Duty be smothered!" interrupted Adam Thorneycroft. "I shall think you a born natural presently, Charlotte."
"Yes, I know. I can't help it. Adam, we should never pull together, you see. Good-bye! We can be friends in future, if you like; nothing more."
She held out her hand to him for a parting salutation. Adam, hurt and angry, flung it from him, and turned towards Helstonleigh: and Charlotte continued her way home, her tears dropping in the dusky night.