Sir Harry¹ Hotspur returned to Humblethwaite before Cousin George's letter was written, though when he did return all the terms had been arranged, and a portion of the money paid. Perhaps it would have been better that he should have waited and taken the letter with him in his pocket; but in truth he was so wretched that he could not wait. The thing was fixed² and done, and he could but hurry home to hide his face among his own people. He felt that the glory of his house was gone from him. He would sit by the hour together thinking of the boy who had died. He had almost, on occasions, allowed himself to forget his boy, while hoping that his name and wide domains³ might be kept together by the girl that was left to him. He was beginning to understand now that she was already but little better than a wreck⁴. Indeed, was not everything shipwreck⁵ around him? Was he not going to pieces on the rocks? Did not the lesson of every hour seem to tell him that, throughout his long life, he had thought too much of his house and his name?

It would have been better that he should have waited till the letter was in his pocket before he returned home, because, when he reached Humblethwaite, the last argument was wanting to him to prove to Emily that her hope was vain. Even after his arrival, when the full story was told to her, she held out in her resolve. She accepted the truth of that scene at Walker's rooms. She acknowledged that her lover had cheated the wretched man at cards. After that all other iniquities⁶ were of course as nothing. There was a completeness in that of which she did not fail to accept, and to use the benefit. When she had once taken it as true that her lover had robbed his inferior by foul⁷ play at cards, there could be no good in alluding⁸ to this or that lie, in counting up this or that disreputable debt, in alluding to habits of brandy-drinking, or even in soiling her pure mind with any word as to Mrs. Morton. It was granted that he was as

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