yours,—yours not with selfish wishes, but
with a devotion that excludes such wishes.
“God comfort you, my loving, large-souled
Maggie. If every one else
has misconceived you, remember that you
have never been doubted by
him whose heart recognized you ten years
ago.
“Do not believe any one who says
I am ill, because I am not seen out of doors.
I have only had nervous headaches,—no worse
than I have sometimes had them before. But
the overpowering heat inclines me to be perfectly
quiescent in the daytime. I am strong enough to
obey any word which shall tell me that I can serve
you by word or deed.
“Yours
to the last,
“Philip Wakem.”
As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter
pressed under her, her feelings again and again gathered
themselves in a whispered cry, always in the same
words,—
“O God, is there any happiness in love that
could make me forget their pain?”
Maggie and Lucy
By the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind
that there was only one way in which he could secure
to Maggie a suitable living at St. Ogg’s.
Even with his twenty years’ experience as a parish
priest, he was aghast at the obstinate continuance
of imputations against her in the face of evidence.
Hitherto he had been rather more adored and appealed
to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting
to open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences
to justice, on behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly
found himself as powerless as he was aware he would
have been if he had attempted to influence the shape
of bonnets. Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted;
he was listened to in silence; but when he left the
room, a comparison of opinions among his hearers yielded
much the same result as before. Miss Tulliver
had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr.
Kenn did not deny that; how, then, could he think
so lightly of her as to put that favorable interpretation
on everything she had done? Even on the supposition
that required the utmost stretch of belief,—namely,
that none of the things said about Miss Tulliver were
true,—still, since they had been
said about her, they had cast an odor round her which
must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who
had to take care of her own reputation—and
of Society. To have taken Maggie by the hand
and said, “I will not believe unproved evil of
you; my lips shall not utter it; my ears shall be
closed against it; I, too, am an erring mortal, liable
to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts;
your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation
greater; let us help each other to stand and walk
without more falling,”—to have done
this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge,
generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted
no piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation
