“Have you any hopes of marrying the man you love?”

“Oh no, none—­not the slightest,” she said, hurriedly; “I shall never marry.”

“Then, Vera, will you listen to an old woman’s advice?”

“Yes, dear Lady Kynaston.”

“My dear, if you cannot marry the man you love, put him out of your mind.”

“I must do that in any case,” she said, wearily.

“Listen to me, my dear.  Don’t sacrifice your own life and the life of a man who is good and loves you dearly to a caprice of your heart.  Hush! don’t interrupt me; I dare say you don’t think it a caprice; you think it is to last for ever.  But there is no ‘for ever’ in these matters; the thing comes to us like an ordinary disease; some of us take it strongly, and it half kills us; some of us are only a very little ill; but we all get over it.  There is a pain that goes right through one’s heart:  it is worse to bear than any physical suffering:  but, thank God, that pain always wears itself out.  My dear, I, who speak to you, have felt it, and I tell you that no man is worth it.  You can cure yourself of it if you will; and the remedy is work and change of the conditions of your life.  You don’t think I look very much like a blighted being, do you? and yet I did not marry the man I loved.  I could not; he was poor, and my parents would not allow it.  I thought I should die, but you see I did not.  I took up my life bravely, and I married a most estimable man; I lived an active and healthy life, so that by degrees it became a happy one.  Now, Vera, why should you not do the same?  Your people have a right to expect that you should marry; they cannot afford to support you for always.  Because you are disappointed in one thing, why are you not to make the best you can of your life?”

“I do mean to marry—­in time,” said Vera, brokenly, with tears in her eyes.

“Then why not marry John?”

There was a minute’s silence.  Was it possible that Lady Kynaston did not know?  Vera asked herself.  Was it possible that she could, in cold blood, advise her to marry one son whilst the other one loved her!  That was what was so terrible to her mind.  To marry was simple enough, but to marry Sir John Kynaston!  She thought of what such an action might bring upon them all.  The daily meetings, the struggles with temptation, the awful tampering with deadly sin.  Could any one so constituted as she was walk deliberately and with open eyes into such a situation?

She shuddered.

“I cannot do it,” she said, wringing her hands together; “don’t ask me; I cannot do it!”

Lady Kynaston got up, and went and stood by her chair.

“Vera, I entreat you not to let any false pride stand in the way of this.  Do not imagine that I ask you to do anything that would wound your vanity, or humble you in your own eyes.  It would be so easy for me to arrange a meeting between you and John; it shall all come about simply and naturally.  As soon as he sees you again, he will speak to you.”