"When I am dead," says Shakspeare's Queen Katherine,
_"Let me be used with honor. Strew me over
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
I was a chaste wife to my grave."_
But Christian thought of something beyond the world. The 'honor' lay
with herself alone; or, like her marriage vow, between herself, her
husband, and her God. She was conscious of no dramatic struggles of
conscience, no picturesque persistence in duty: she arrived at her end
without any ethical or metaphysical reasoning, and took her course just
because it seemed to her impossible there could be any other course to
take.
It was a very simple one--total passiveness and silence. The young
man could not come to the Lodge very often, even if Miss Gascoigne
invited him ever so much, and was really as charmed with him as she
appeared to be. And no wonder. He was one of those men who charm
every body--perhaps because he was not deliberately bad, else how
could he have attracted Christian Oakley? He had that rare
combination of a brilliant intellect, an esthetic fancy, strong passions,
and a weak moral nature, which makes some of the most dangerous and
fatal characters the world ever sees.
But, be he what he might, he could not force his presence upon
Christian against her will.
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