Yet the likeness or apparent likeness would suggest that we have not so much to fear upon the day of the explanation to him.  Some gain is there.  Shameful thought!  Nataly hastened her mind to gather many instances or indications testifying to the sterling substance in young Mr. Sowerby, such as a mother would pray for her son-in-law to possess.  She discovered herself feeling as the burdened mother, not providently for her girl, in the choice of a mate.  The perception was clear, and not the less did she continue working at the embroidery of Mr. Sowerby on the basis of his excellent moral foundations, all the while hoping, praying, that he might not be lured on to the proposal for Nesta.  But her subservience to the power of the persuasive will in Victor—­which was like the rush of a conflagration—­compelled her to think realizingly of any scheme he allowed her darkly to read.

Opposition to him, was comparable to the stand of blocks of timber before flame.  Colney Durance had done her the mischief we take from the pessimist when we are overweighted:  in darkening the vision of external aid from man or circumstance to one who felt herself mastered.  Victor could make her treacherous to her wishes, in revolt against them, though the heart protested.  His first conquest of her was in her blood, to weaken a spirit of resistance.  For the precedent of submission is a charm upon the faint-hearted through love:  it unwinds, unwills them.  Nataly resolved fixedly, that there must be a day for speaking; and she had her moral sustainment in the resolve; she had also a tormenting consciousness of material support in the thought, that the day was not present, was possibly distant, might never arrive.  Would Victor’s release come sooner?  And that was a prospect bearing resemblance to hopes of the cure of a malady through a sharp operation.

These were matters going on behind the curtain; as wholly vital to her, and with him at times almost as dominant, as the spiritual in memory, when flesh has left but its shining track in dust of a soul outwritten; and all their talk related to the purchase of furniture, the expeditions to Lakelands, music, public affairs, the pardonable foibles of friends created to amuse their fellows, operatic heroes and heroines, exhibitions of pictures, the sorrows of Crowned Heads, so serviceable ever to mankind as an admonition to the ambitious, a salve to the envious!—­in fine, whatsoever can entertain or affect the most social of couples, domestically without a care to appearance.  And so far they partially—­dramatically—­deceived themselves by imposing on the world while they talked and duetted; for the purchase of furniture from a flowing purse is a cheerful occupation; also a City issuing out of hospital, like this poor City of London, inspires good citizens to healthy activity.  But the silence upon what they were most bent on, had the sinister effect upon Victor, of obscuring his mental hold of the beloved woman, drifting her away from