Nora had sent her lover away, and now at the end of three months from the day of his dismissal she had taught herself to believe that he would never come again.  Amidst the sadness of her life at St Diddulph’s some confidence in a lover expected to come again would have done much to cheer her.  The more she thought of Hugh Stanbury, the more fully she became convinced that he was the man who as a lover, as a husband, and as a companion, would just suit all her tastes.  She endowed him liberally with a hundred good gifts in the disposal of which Nature had been much more sparing.  She made for herself a mental portrait of him more gracious in its flattery than ever was canvas coming from the hand of a Court limner.  She gave him all gifts of manliness, honesty, truth, and energy, and felt regarding him that he was a Paladin such as Paladins are in this age, that he was indomitable, sure of success, and fitted in all respects to take the high position which he would certainly win for himself.  But she did not presume him to be endowed with such a constancy as would make him come to seek her hand again.  Had Nora at this time of her life been living at the West-end of London, and going out to parties three or four times a week, she would have been quite easy about his coming.  The springs would not have been weighted so heavily, and her heart would have been elastic.

No doubt she had forgotten many of the circumstances of his visit and of his departure.  Immediately on his going she had told her sister that he would certainly come again, but had said at the same time that his coming could be of no use.  He was so poor a man; and she, though poorer than he, had been so little accustomed to poverty of life, that she had then acknowledged to herself that she was not fit to be his wife.  Gradually, as the slow weeks went by her, there had come a change in her ideas.  She now thought that he never would come again; but that if he did she would confess to him that her own views about life were changed.  ’I would tell him frankly that I could eat a crust with him in any garret in London.’  But this was said to herself, never to her sister.  Emily and Mrs Outhouse had determined together that it would be wise to abstain from all mention of Hugh Stanbury’s name.  Nora had felt that her sister had so abstained, and this reticence had assisted in producing the despair which had come upon her.  Hugh, when he had left her, had certainly given her encouragement to expect that he would return.  She had been sure then that he would return.  She had been sure of it, though she had told him that it would be useless.  But now, when these sad weeks had slowly crept over her head, when during the long hours of the long days she had thought of him continually, telling herself that it was impossible that she should ever become the wife of any man if she did not become his, she assured herself that she had seen and heard the last of him.  She must surely have forgotten his hot words and that daring embrace.