He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for his evening’s comfort.

He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon; he shut out Sovereign and Court and Starry Armies; he added fuel to the hot but fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the table; he placed another chair opposite that near the work-stand, and then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small, thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in a cramped, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy—stoop over his shoulder fearlessly and read as he scribbles:

‘It is nine o’clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room; sit opposite her chair; rest my elbow on her table; have her little mementos about me.

‘I used rather to like Solitude—to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone mountain-passes; something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath—but much also of their solemn beauty in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it—all mute, but majestic.

‘Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me—asked my protection—appealed to my strength: since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold abstraction—fleshless skeleton—daughter—mother—and mate of Death!

‘It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my heart: none can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will—say what I dare utter to nothing living—say what I dare not think aloud.

‘We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing- room, seeking a book of Henry’s, she entered, dressed for a concert at Stilbro’. Shyness—her shyness, not mine—drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read about “maiden modesty”; but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words are good and appropriate words; as she passed to the window, after tacitly but gracefully recognising me, I could call her nothing in my own mind save “stainless virgin”: to my perception, a delicate splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men; but, in truth, that shyness of hers touched me exquisitely: it flattered my finest sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say: I was alive with a life of Paradise, as she turned her glance from my glance, and softly averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek.

‘I know this is the talk of a dreamer—of a rapt, romantic lunatic: I do dream: I will dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance into my prosaic composition, how can I help it?

‘What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I see her now, looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic; I see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of sympathy, as people thought; I see the secret tear drop quietly from her eyelash. She said I thought her childish—and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised her! it was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near her and above her: to be conscious of a natural right and power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.

‘I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me—that nestle her to my heart—that fold her about with my love—and that for a most selfish, but deeply-natural reason: these faults are the steps by which I mount to ascendancy over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites ascent—whose summit it is pleasure to gain.