Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. IV, 1876.djvu/293

 disobeyed your better will—the will that struggled against temptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you?"

"Yes—at least, I want to be good—not like what I have been," said Gwendolen. "I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have tried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do?"

"If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income,'* said Deronda, "I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful prompting; but I take as a guide now your feeling about Mrs Davilow, which seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband's dues even to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. He voluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is always the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from him in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of course understood that if this will took effect she would share the provision he had made for you."

"She has had eight hundred a-year. What I thought of was to take that and leave the rest," said Gwendolen. She had been so long inwardly arguing for this as a permission, that her mind could not at once take another attitude.