`No, it is not done,' said Maggie - `Too much is done - more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no farther. Don't try to prevail with me again. I couldn't choose yesterday.'

What was he to do? He dared not go near her - her anger might leap out, and make a new barrier. He walked backwards and forwards in maddening perplexity.

`Maggie,' he said, at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a tone of imploring wretchedness, `Have some pity - hear me - forgive me for what I did yesterday. - I will obey you now - I will do nothing without your full consent. But don't blight our lives for ever by a rash perversity that can answer no good purpose to any one - that can only create new evils. Sit down, dearest - wait - think what you are going to do. Don't treat me as if you couldn't trust me.'

He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggie's will was fixed unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made up her mind to suffer.

`We must not wait,' she said, in a low but distinct voice. `We must part at once.'

`We can't part, Maggie,' said Stephen, more impetuously. `I can't bear it. What is the use of inflicting that misery on me? The blow - whatever it may have been - has been struck now. Will it help any one else that you should drive me mad?'

`I will not begin any future, even for you,' said Maggie, tremulously, `with a deliberate consent to what ought not to have been. What I told you at Basset I feel now: - I would rather have died than fall into this temptation. It would have been better if we had parted for ever then. But we must part now.'

`We will not part,' Stephen burst out, instinctively placing his back against the door - forgetting everything he had said a few moments before. `I will not endure it. You'll make me desperate - I shan't know what I do.'

Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected suddenly. She must rely on a slower appeal to Stephen's better self - she must be prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while resolution was fresh. She sat down. Stephen, watching her with that look of desperation which had come over him like a lurid light, approached slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her and grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a frightened bird; but this direct opposition helped her - she felt her determination growing stronger.

`Remember what you felt weeks ago,' she began, with beseeching earnestness - `remember what we both felt - that we owed ourselves to others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false to that debt. We have failed to keep our resolutions - but the wrong remains the same.'

`No, it does not remain the same,' said Stephen. `We have proved that it was impossible to keep our resolutions. We have proved that the feeling which draws us towards each other is too strong to be overcome. That natural law surmounts every other, - we can't help what it clashes with.'

`It is not so, Stephen - I'm quite sure that is wrong. I have tried to think it again and again - but I see, if we judged in that way, there would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty - we should justify breaking the most sacred ties that can ever be formed on earth. If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.'

`But there are ties that can't be kept by mere resolution,' said Stephen, starting up and walking about again. `What is outward faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as constancy without love?'

Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as well as an outward contest. At last she said, with a passionate assertion of her conviction as much against herself as against him,