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258 letter which had assured him how indifferent she was to her own "interests." That subject, indeed, never troubled her; but her uncle's possible misery did. How would that vile woman treat him, now that Elizabeth was gone? Were his eyes being opened gradually to her real character? Was Mr. Twisden's evident solicitude about his old friend due to this? She could not ask him; there was no one of whom she could inquire as to her poor Uncle William's domestic happiness. She must remain silent, ignorant of all concerning him, beyond the bare fact that his bodily health was better. She had not thought so much of the kind and credulous old man of Farley, and of all the secret disgrace attaching to it for many weeks, as she now did in the long silent hours of the journey.

She never doubted but that the course she had taken—that of cutting herself entirely adrift from her moorings—was the wisest, indeed the only one, under the circumstances. But if those circumstances changed? As long as her uncle's wife remained at Farley, it never could be Elizabeth's duty to return there. But if Mrs. Shaw should die, or that her treachery were discovered, and she were driven from her husband's house, Elizabeth knew that it would be her duty to return there, and take up her life again with the old man, at whatsoever cost. And the cost would be great. Now she had learnt what a life, untrammelled by conventions, unweighted by "social duties," meant; above all, now that she knew what friendship was, and what colour and savour it lent to existence, a return to the sleek commonplaces of acquaintanceship, the dull routine of a country neighborhood, the fat even pastures of mediocrity would be