But as the night waned, the certainty of her duty grew clearer and
clearer. She had long ago made up her mind that she must not marry.
She might be happy, it was true, and make other people so, but her
duty was not this, and a certainty that satisfaction and the blessing
of God would not follow her into these reverenced and honored limits
came to her distinctly. One by one the reasons for keeping on her
chosen course grew more unanswerable than ever. She had not thought
she should be called to resist this temptation, but since it had come
she was glad she was strong enough to meet it. It would be no real
love for another person, and no justice to herself, to give up her
work, even though holding it fast would bring weariness and pain and
reproach, and the loss of many things that other women held dearest
and best.
In the morning Nan smiled when her aunt noticed her tired look, and
said that the play had been a pursuit of pleasure under difficulties.
And though Miss Prince looked up in dismay, and was full of objections
and almost querulous reproaches because Nan said she must end her
visit within a day or two, she hoped that George Gerry would be, after
all, a reason for the girl's staying. Until Nan, who had been standing
by the window, looking wistfully at the garden, suddenly turned and
said, gently and solemnly, "Listen, Aunt Nancy! I must be about my
business; you do not know what it means to me, or what I hope to make
it mean to other people.
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