From this letter there was of course some disappointment, though some feeling of relief.  Had he come there she might possibly have seen him after the interview.  But she would have been subjected to the immediate sternness of her father’s anger.  That she would now escape.  She would not be called on to meet him just when the first blow had fallen upon him.  She was quite sure that he would disapprove of the thing.  She was quite sure that he would be very angry.  She knew that he was a peculiarly just man, and yet she thought that in this he would be unjust.  Had she been called upon to sing the praises of her father she would have insisted above all things on the absolute integrity of his mind, and yet, knowing as she did that he would be opposed to her marriage with Mr Tregear, she assured herself every day and every hour that he had no right to make any such objection.  The man she loved was a gentleman, and an honest man, by no means a fool, and subject to no vices.  Her father had no right to demand that she should give her heart to a rich man, or to one of high rank.  Rank!  As for rank, she told herself that she had the most supreme contempt for it.  She thought that she had seen it near enough already to be sure that it ought to have no special allurements.  What was it doing for her?  Simply restraining her choice among comparatively a few who seemed to her by no means best endowed of God’s creatures.

Of one thing she was very sure, that under no pressure whatsoever would she abandon her engagement to Mr Tregear.  That to her had become a bond almost as holy as matrimony itself could be.  She had told the man that she loved him, and after that there could be no retreat.  He had kissed her, and she had returned his caress.  He had told her that she was his, as his arm was round her; and she had acknowledged that it was so, that she belonged to him, and could not be taken away from him.  All this was to her a compact so sacred that nothing could break it but a desire on his part to have it annulled.  No other man had an idea entered into her mind that it could be pleasant to join her lot in life with his.  With her it had been all new and all sacred.  Love with her had that religion which nothing but freshness can give it.  That freshness, that bloom, may last through a long life.  But every change impairs it, and after many changes it has perished forever.  There was no question with her but that she must bear her father’s anger, should he be angry; put up with his continued opposition, should he resolutely oppose her; bear all that the countesses of the world might say to her;—­for it was thus that she thought of Lady Cantrip now.  And retrogression was beyond her power.

She was walking with her father when she first heard of the intended trip to London.  At that time she had received Mrs Finn’s first letter, but not the second.  ’I suppose you will see Silverbridge,’ she said.  She knew that Frank Tregear was living with her brother.