Thus, caring only for
those things which wealth can buy, she had made up her mind that she
could not do without Horace Smithson's money; and she must therefore
needs resign herself to the disagreeable necessity of taking Smithson
and his money together. The great auctioneer Fate would not divide the
lot.
She told herself that for her a loveless marriage was, after all, no
prodigious sacrifice. She had found out that heart made but a small
figure in the sum of her life. She could do without love. A year ago she
had fancied herself in love with John Hammond. In her seclusion at St.
Bees, in the long, dull August days, sauntering up and down by the edge
of the sea, in the melancholy sunset hour, she thought that her heart
was broken, that life was worthless without the man she loved. She had
thought and felt all this, but not strongly enough to urge her to any
great effort, not keenly enough to make her burst her chains. She had
preferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances of future
aggrandisement. And now she looked back and remembered those sunset
walks by the sea, and all her thoughts and feelings in those silent
summer hours; and she smiled at herself, half in scorn, half in pity,
for her own weakness.
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