Oh, no—no! she cries to herself with vehemence. Her mother depends on her every day and hour for protection, comfort, enjoyment. The girls are at the opening of life,—Agnes twenty, Rose eighteen, with all experience to come. And Rose—— Ah! at the thought of Rose, Catherine's heart sinks deeper and deeper—she feels a culprit before her father's memory. What is it has gone so desperately wrong with her training of the child? Surely she has given love enough, anxious thought enough, and here is Rose only fighting to be free from the yoke of her father's wishes, from the galling pressure of the family tradition!
No. Her task has just now reached its most difficult, its most critical, moment. How can she leave it? Impossible.
What claim can she put against these supreme claims—of her promise, her mother's and sisters' need?
His claim? Oh, no—no! She admits with soreness and humiliation unspeakable that she has done him wrong. If he loves her she has opened the way thereto; she confesses in her scrupulous honesty that when the inevitable withdrawal comes she will have given him cause to think of her hardly, slightingly. She flinches painfully under the thought. But it does not alter the matter. This girl, brought up in the austerest school of Christian self-government, knows nothing of the divine rights of passion. Half modern literature is based upon them. Catherine Leyburn knew of no supreme right but the right of God to the obedience of man.
Oh, and besides—besides—it is impossible that he should care so very much. The time is so short—there is so little in her, comparatively, to attract a man of such resource, such attainments, such access to the best things of life.
She cannot—in a kind of terror—she will not, believe in her own love-worthiness, in her own power to deal a lasting wound.
Then her own claim? Has she any claim, has the poor bounding heart that she cannot silence, do what she will, through all this strenuous debate, no claim to satisfaction, to joy?
She locks her hands round her knees, conscious, poor soul, that the worst struggle is here, the quickest agony here. But she does not waver for an instant. And her weapons are all ready. The inmost soul of her is a fortress well stored, whence at any moment the mere personal craving of the natural man can be met, repulsed, slain.
'Man approacheth so much the nearer unto God the farther he departeth from all earthly comfort.'
'If thou couldst perfectly annihilate thyself and empty thyself of all created love, then should I be constrained to flow into thee with greater abundance of grace.'