Chapter: The Return to the Mill


Between four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth day from
that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St. Ogg's, Tom Tulliver was
standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He
was master there now; he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish,
and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he had
brought himself near to the attainment of more than the old
respectability which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons and
Tullivers.

But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summer
afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its
bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as
he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the
sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up
and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob
Jakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and put an end to all
improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that he
had seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Stephen Guest. Would the next
news be that she was married,--or what? Probably that she was not
married; Tom's mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could
happen,--not death, but disgrace.

As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his face
toward the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we know
well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him with a
fast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she had
been most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fear
which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending,
unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and
yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us.

That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind was
unswervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge
that had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospect
of her own weakness,--in her anguish at the injury she had
inflicted,--she almost desired to endure the severity of Tom's
reproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh, disapproving
judgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed no more
than just to her now,--who was weaker than she was? She craved that
outward help to her better purpose which would come from complete,
submissive confession; from being in the presence of those whose looks
and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.

Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that
prostrating headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strain
of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical
pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her
dress so long unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch
of the gate and walked in slowly. Tom did not hear the gate; he was
just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned, and
lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness
seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused,
trembling and white with disgust and indignation.

Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his
face, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak.

"Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you,--I am come back
home--for refuge--to tell you everything."

"You will find no home with me," he answered, with tremulous rage.
"You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced my father's name. You
have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base, deceitful;
no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you
forever. You don't belong to me."

Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by the
double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom's words.

"Tom," said Maggie, with more courage, "I am perhaps not so guilty as
you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I
struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come back
on Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could."

"I can't believe in you any more," said Tom, gradually passing from
the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility.
"You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with Stephen
Guest,--as you did before with another. He went to see you at my aunt
Moss's; you walked alone with him in the lanes; you must have behaved
as no modest girl would have done to her cousin's lover, else that
could never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass; you
passed all the other places; you knew what you were doing. You have
been using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy,--the kindest
friend you ever had. Go and see the return you have made her. She's
ill; unable to speak. My mother can't go near her, lest she should
remind her of you."

Maggie was half stunned,--too heavily pressed upon by her anguish even
to discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brother's
accusations, still less to vindicate herself.

"Tom," she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in the
effort to speak again, "whatever I have done, I repent it bitterly. I
want to make amends. I will endure anything. I want to be kept from
doing wrong again."

"What _will_ keep you?" said Tom, with cruel bitterness. "Not
religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and honor. And he--he
would deserve to be shot, if it were not----But you are ten times
worse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. You
struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! _I_ have had feelings to
struggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you
have had; but I have found _my_ comfort in doing my duty. But I will
sanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that _I_
feel the difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, I
will provide for you; let my mother know. But you shall not come under
my roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of your
disgrace; the sight of you is hateful to me."

Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poor
frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger than all dread.

"My child! I'll go with you. You've got a mother."

Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More
helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will
not forsake us.

Tom turned and walked into the house.

"Come in, my child," Mrs. Tulliver whispered. "He'll let you stay and
sleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I ask him."

"No, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. "I will never
go in."

"Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with you."

When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in
the passage, and put money into her hands.

"My house is yours, mother, always," he said. "You will come and let
me know everything you want; you will come back to me."

Poor Mrs. Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. The
only thing clear to her was the mother's instinct that she would go
with her unhappy child.

Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother's hand and
they walked a little way in silence.

"Mother," said Maggie, at last, "we will go to Luke's cottage. Luke
will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl."

"He's got no room for us, my dear, now; his wife's got so many
children. I don't know where to go, if it isn't to one o' your aunts;
and I hardly durst," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, quite destitute of
mental resources in this extremity.

Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,--

"Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have room for us, if
they have no other lodger."

So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to the old house by the
river-side.

Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even
the new joy and pride of possessing a two-months'-old baby, quite the
liveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. He
would perhaps not so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of
Maggie's appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport if
he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when he went to
report it; and since then, the circumstances which in any case gave a
disastrous character to her elopement had passed beyond the more
polite circles of St. Ogg's, and had become matter of common talk,
accessible to the grooms and errand-boys. So that when he opened the
door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness,
he had no questions to ask except one which he dared only ask
himself,--where was Mr. Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped he
might be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist in
the other world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallen
circumstances there.

The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakin the larger and Mrs.
Jakin the less were commanded to make all things comfortable for "the
old Missis and the young Miss"; alas that she was still "Miss!" The
ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have
come about; how Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or
could have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of keeping
her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask
him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should
appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry
toward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had bought her the
memorable present of books.

But after a day or two Mrs. Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for a
few hours to see to Tom's household matters. Maggie had wished this;
after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she
had no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of
her mother's presence; she even desired to be alone with her grief.
But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room
that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and
turning round her sad face as she said "Come in," she saw Bob enter,
with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels.

"We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob.

"No," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.

Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.

"You see, we've got a little un, Miss, and I want'd you to look at it,
and take it in your arms, if you'd be so good. For we made free to
name it after you, and it 'ud be better for your takin' a bit o'
notice on it."

Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny
baby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascertain that this
transference was all right. Maggie's heart had swelled at this action
and speech of Bob's; she knew well enough that it was a way he had
chosen to show his sympathy and respect.

"Sit down, Bob," she said presently, and he sat down in silence,
finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing to
say what he wanted it to say.

"Bob," she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and
holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and
her fingers, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Don't you speak so, Miss," said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumps's
neck; "if there's anything I can do for you, I should look upon it as
a day's earnings."

"I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him, and tell him
that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to me
while my mother is away. She will not come back till evening."

"Eh, Miss, I'd do it in a minute,--it is but a step,--but Dr. Kenn's
wife lies dead; she's to be buried to-morrow; died the day I come from
Mudport. It's all the more pity she should ha' died just now, if you
want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet."

"Oh no, Bob," said Maggie, "we must let it be,--till after a few days,
perhaps, when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps he
may be going out of town--to a distance," she added, with a new sense
of despondency at this idea.

"Not he, Miss," said Bob. "_He'll_ none go away. He isn't one o' them
gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin'-places when their wives die; he's
got summat else to do. He looks fine and sharp after the parish, he
does. He christened the little un; an' he was _at_ me to know what I
did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was upo'
the travel three parts o' the Sundays,--an' then I'm so used to bein'
on my legs, I can't sit so long on end,--'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'a
packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church; it tastes strong,' says
I; 'there's no call to lay it on thick.' Eh, Miss, how good the little
un is wi' you! It's like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I'll be
bound,--like the birds know the mornin'."

Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and
might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it.
But the subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep and
difficult of approach, that his tongue was likely to run on along the
level rather than to carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this,
and was silent again for a little while, ruminating much on the
possible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in a
more timid voice than usual,--

"Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?"

Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, "Yes, Bob, if it is
about myself--not about any one else."

"Well, Miss, it's this. _Do_ you owe anybody a grudge?"

"No, not any one," said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. "Why?"

"Oh, lors, Miss," said Bob, pinching Mumps's neck harder than ever. "I
wish you did, an' tell me; I'd leather him till I couldn't see--I
would--an' the Justice might do what he liked to me arter."

"Oh, Bob," said Maggie, smiling faintly, "you're a very good friend to
me. But I shouldn't like to punish any one, even if they'd done me
wrong; I've done wrong myself too often."

This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more obscurity than
ever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and
Maggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even if
he could have framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby
away again to an expectant mother.

"Happen you'd like Mumps for company, Miss," he said when he had taken
the baby again. "He's rare company, Mumps is; he knows iverything, an'
makes no bother about it. If I tell him, he'll lie before you an'
watch you, as still,--just as he watches my pack. You'd better let me
leave him a bit; he'll get fond on you. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev
a dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw."

"Yes, do leave him, please," said Maggie. "I think I should like to
have Mumps for a friend."

"Mumps, lie down there," said Bob, pointing to a place in front of
Maggie, "and niver do you stir till you're spoke to."

Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when his
master left the room.



St. Ogg's Passes Judgment


It was soon known throughout St. Ogg's that Miss Tulliver was come
back; she had not, then, eloped in order to be married to Mr. Stephen
Guest,--at all events, Mr. Stephen Guest had not married her; which
came to the same thing, so far as her culpability was concerned. We
judge others according to results; how else?--not knowing the process
by which results are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months
of well-chosen travel, had returned as Mrs. Stephen Guest, with a
post-marital _trousseau_, and all the advantages possessed even by the
most unwelcome wife of an only son, public opinion, which at St.
Ogg's, as else where, always knew what to think, would have judged in
strict consistency with those results. Public opinion, in these cases,
is always of the feminine gender,--not the world, but the world's
wife; and she would have seen that two handsome young people--the
gentleman of quite the first family in St. Ogg's--having found
themselves in a false position, had been led into a course which, to
say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and productive of sad
pain and disappointment, especially to that sweet young thing, Miss
Deane. Mr. Stephen Guest had certainly not behaved well; but then,
young men were liable to those sudden infatuated attachments; and bad
as it might seem in Mrs. Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances
from her cousin's lover (indeed it _had_ been said that she was
actually engaged to young Wakem,--old Wakem himself had mentioned it),
still, she was very young,--"and a deformed young man, you know!--and
young Guest so very fascinating; and, they say, he positively worships
her (to be sure, that can't last!), and he ran away with her in the
boat quite against her will, and what could she do? She couldn't come
back then; no one would have spoken to her; and how very well that
maize-colored satinette becomes her complexion! It seems as if the
folds in front were quite come in; several of her dresses are made
so,--they say he thinks nothing too handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss
Deane! She is very pitiable; but then there was no positive
engagement; and the air at the coast will do her good. After all, if
young Guest felt no more for her than _that_ it was better for her not
to marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like Miss
Tulliver,--quite romantic? Why, young Guest will put up for the
borough at the next election. Nothing like commerce nowadays! That
young Wakem nearly went out of his mind; he always _was_ rather queer;
but he's gone abroad again to be out of the way,--quite the best thing
for a deformed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr.
and Mrs. Stephen Guest,--such nonsense! pretending to be better than
other people. Society couldn't be carried on if we inquired into
private conduct in that way,--and Christianity tells us to think no
evil,--and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no cards sent her."

But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this
extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a _trousseau_,
without a husband,--in that degraded and outcast condition to which
error is well known to lead; and the world's wife, with that fine
instinct which is given her for the preservation of Society, saw at
once that Miss Tulliver's conduct had been of the most aggravated
kind. Could anything be more detestable? A girl so much indebted to
her friends--whose mother as well as herself had received so much
kindness from the Deanes--to lay the design of winning a young man's
affections away from her own cousin, who had behaved like a sister to
her! Winning his affections? That was not the phrase for such a girl
as Miss Tulliver; it would have been more correct to say that she had
been actuated by mere unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. There
was always something questionable about her. That connection with
young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for years, looked
very ill,--disgusting, in fact! But with a girl of that disposition!
To the world's wife there had always been something in Miss Tulliver's
very _physique_ that a refined instinct felt to be prophetic of harm.
As for poor Mr. Stephen Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise;
a young man of five-and-twenty is not to be too severely judged in
these cases,--he is really very much at the mercy of a designing, bold
girl. And it was clear that he had given way in spite of himself: he
had shaken her off as soon as he could; indeed, their having parted so
soon looked very black indeed--_for her_. To be sure, he had written a
letter, laying all the blame on himself, and telling the story in a
romantic fashion so as to try and make her appear quite innocent; of
course he would do that! But the refined instinct of the world's wife
was not to be deceived; providentially!--else what would become of
Society? Why, her own brother had turned her from his door; he had
seen enough, you might be sure, before he would do that. A truly
respectable young man, Mr. Tom Tulliver; quite likely to rise in the
world! His sister's disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to him. It was
to be hoped that she would go out of the neighborhood,--to America, or
anywhere,--so as to purify the air of St. Ogg's from the stain of her
presence, extremely dangerous to daughters there! No good could happen
to her; it was only to be hoped she would repent, and that God would
have mercy on her: He had not the care of society on His hands, as the
world's wife had.

It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of
these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen's
letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone
across to Holland,--had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for
money,--was incapable of any resolution at present.

Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing
anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her
conduct by the world of St. Ogg's; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy,
Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of
mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and
injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their
worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable
since the words she had heard from her brother's lips. Across all her
anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and
again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread
even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness
never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every
sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to
vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one
act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot,
was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness
haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace
conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge.

But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence
was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that
she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell
back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough
to pay for her lodging at Bob's. She meant to persuade her mother to
return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or
other she would maintain herself at St. Ogg's. Dr. Kenn would perhaps
help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the
bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had
sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with
yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to
him. Her mother called every day at Mr. Deane's to learn how Lucy was;
the report was always sad,--nothing had yet roused her from the feeble
passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs.
Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would
speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she
summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know
everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs.
Tulliver's absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on
the occasion.

As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had
resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr. Kenn; he was
in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such
circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door
since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of
her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and
being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed
beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob's
dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and
this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to
right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs. and Miss
Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her
strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks
were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for
resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are
very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group
of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and
she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass
at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he
might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid.

Maggie's pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in
the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took
strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her
besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward
Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find
something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice;
the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can
inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for
the righteous to bestow.

She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr. Kenn's
study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little
appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a
girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the
door was closed, Dr. Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie,--

"I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am
glad you did."

Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at
the bazaar, and said, "I want to tell you everything." But her eyes
filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement
of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more.

"Do tell me everything," Dr. Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his
grave, firm voice. "Think of me as one to whom a long experience has
been granted, which may enable him to help you."

In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon
with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the
confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the
beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr. Kenn had been
made acquainted with the contents of Stephen's letter, and he had
believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie's statement.
That involuntary plaint of hers, "_Oh, I must go_," had remained with
him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict.

Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back
to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of
the past. When she had ended, Dr. Kenn was silent for some minutes;
there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down
the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again,
and said, looking at Maggie,--

"Your prompting to go to your nearest friends,--to remain where all
the ties of your life have been formed,--is a true prompting, to which
the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds,
opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the
last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And
the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that
every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood
under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian
fraternity are entirely relaxed,--they can hardly be said to exist in
the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial,
contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of
schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the
Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution
which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at
observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility
among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the
relaxation of ties,--toward the substitution of wayward choice for the
adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your
conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point,
Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish
about you--what my advice to you--would be, if they sprang from my own
feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances."

Dr. Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of
effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in
the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his
benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might
have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly,
quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He
went on.

"Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from
anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be
formed concerning your conduct,--conceptions which will have a baneful
effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them."

"Oh, I do,--I begin to see," said Maggie, unable to repress this
utterance of her recent pain. "I know I shall be insulted. I shall be
thought worse than I am."

"You perhaps do not yet know," said Dr. Kenn, with a touch of more
personal pity, "that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one
who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult
path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most
of all difficult."

"Oh, where is he?" said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no
presence could have hindered.

"He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father.
He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of
that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her."

Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.

"That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions
concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not
only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the
last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which
will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The
persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as
yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you,
because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here
will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions.
For this reason--and for this only--I ask you to consider whether it
will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance,
according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to
obtain one for you."

"Oh, if I could but stop here!" said Maggie. "I have no heart to begin
a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a
lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who
offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could
perhaps atone in some way to Lucy--to others; I could convince them
that I'm sorry. And," she added, with some of the old proud fire
flashing out, "I will not go away because people say false things of
me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last,
because--because others wish it, I will not go now."

"Well," said Dr. Kenn, after some consideration, "if you determine on
that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position
gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of
my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a
deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare."

"The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get
my bread and be independent," said Maggie. "I shall not want much. I
can go on lodging where I am."

"I must think over the subject maturely," said Dr. Kenn, "and in a few
days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall
come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind."

When Maggie had left him, Dr. Kenn stood ruminating with his hands
behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of
doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen's letter, which he had read,
and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him
powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie
as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St.
Ogg's on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw
an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie's stay there. On
the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had
known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service
to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie's heart and conscience
which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her
conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had
acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His
experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility
to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to
restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling
submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a
darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was
clogged with evil.

The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is
clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question
whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the
possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must
accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a
trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all
cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their
perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to
which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed,--the truth, that
moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked
and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances
that mark the individual lot.

All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to
the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the
mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and
that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all
the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing
insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular
representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment
solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice
by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting
patience, discrimination, impartiality,--without any care to assure
themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly
earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough
to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.



Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us


When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an
unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not
been heard of, Mrs. Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down
her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far
more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done
anything to wound the family honor in the tenderest point. When at
last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from
him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe
reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was
compelled. If you were not to stand by your "kin" as long as there was
a shred of honor attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by?
Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force
you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and
though Mrs. Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie's future at a time
when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a
jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of
her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of
the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace.
The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs. Glegg's experience;
nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was
a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of
character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of
clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money
matters. She quarrelled with Mr. Glegg, whose kindness, flowing
entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of
Maggie as Mr. Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister
Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help,
shut herself up in her own room with Baxter's "Saints' Rest" from
morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr. Glegg
brought from Mr. Deane the news of Stephen's letter. Then Mrs. Glegg
felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside
Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do
nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had
died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which
had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act,
and Mrs. Pullet could never enter St. Ogg's again, because
"acquaintances" knew of it all, Mrs. Glegg only hoped that Mrs. Wooll,
or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her
own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person!

Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in
proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom,
like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under
that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been
able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He
thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by
his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that
Maggie's nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked
with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act
on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days
bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the
limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over
him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be
severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance
lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a
repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their
early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers
together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a
common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to
him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger
nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the
character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal
pride.

Mrs. Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished,--she was not a
woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was,--but punished in
proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were
cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show
that their own kin were better.

"Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear," said poor Mrs.
Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, "as I didn't go to her before;
she said it wasn't for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a
sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please,--oh
dear!--but she's said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you
yet, my child. For she says, for all she's been so set again' having
one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and
putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house,
if you'll go to her dutiful, and she'll uphold you against folks as
say harm of you when they've no call. And I told her I thought you
couldn't bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with
trouble; but she said, '_I_ won't throw ill words at her; there's them
out o' th' family 'ull be ready enough to do that. But I'll give her
good advice; an' she must be humble.' It's wonderful o' Jane; for I'm
sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me,--if it was the
raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it
was."

"Oh, mother," said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the
contact her bruised mind would have to bear, "tell her I'm very
grateful; I'll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can't see any one
just yet, except Dr. Kenn. I've been to him,--he will advise me, and
help me to get some occupation. I can't live with any one, or be
dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did
you hear nothing of Philip--Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one
that has mentioned him?"

"No, my dear; but I've been to Lucy's, and I saw your uncle, and he
says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o' Miss
Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she's on the turn to
be better. What a world this is,--what trouble, oh dear! The law was
the first beginning, and it's gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden,
just when the luck seemed on the turn?" This was the first lamentation
that Mrs. Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been
revived by the interview with sister Glegg.

"My poor, poor mother!" Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity
and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother's neck; "I was
always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been
happy if it hadn't been for me."

"Eh, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young
cheek; "I must put up wi' my children,--I shall never have no more;
and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There's nothing
else much to be fond on, for my furnitur' went long ago. And you'd got
to be very good once; I can't think how it's turned out the wrong way
so!"

Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of
Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and
she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr. Kenn, on his
next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The
elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the
disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a
good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his
son's hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by
conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in
St. Ogg's; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one
asked him a question about his son.

But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known
through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was
gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this
suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently
in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her?

At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a
hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name,--a hand
in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare
which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in
violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in
solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow.

  "Maggie,--I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I
  know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this
  before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The
  night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen
  what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another
  whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but
  through all the suggestions--almost murderous suggestions--of rage
  and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness.
  I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that
  you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for
  Lucy's sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not
  fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of
  resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I
  believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which
  drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters,
  and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which
  makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration
  of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of
  in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the
  artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with
  love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would
  never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and
  the beauty it bears for him.

  "I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled
  with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious
  delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even
  to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss
  of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the
  promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to
  the foregoing pain,--the promise of another self that would lift my
  aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing,
  ever-satisfied want?

  "But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came
  before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he
  had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited
  with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love
  and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something
  stronger in you than your love for him.

  "I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even
  in its utmost agony--even in those terrible throes that love must
  suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire--my love for
  you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any
  other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to
  come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not
  bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need
  me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you,--to wait and
  endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you
  of,--that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been
  too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered
  in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the
  grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation;
  I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I
  have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been
  to my affections what light, what color is to my eyes, what music
  is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid
  consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your joy and
  sorrow more than for what is directly my own, has transformed the
  spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing endurance which is
  the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but such complete and
  intense love could have initiated me into that enlarged life which
  grows and grows by appropriating the life of others; for before, I
  was always dragged back from it by ever-present painful
  self-consciousness. I even think sometimes that this gift of
  transferred life which has come to me in loving you, may be a new
  power to me.

  "Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing of my
  life. Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me. It is I who
  should rather reproach myself for having urged my feelings upon
  you, and hurried you into words that you have felt as fetters. You
  meant to be true to those words; you _have_ been true. I can
  measure your sacrifice by what I have known in only one half-hour
  of your presence with me, when I dreamed that you might love me
  best. But, Maggie, I have no just claim on you for more than
  affectionate remembrance.

  "For some time I have shrunk from writing to you, because I have
  shrunk even from the appearance of wishing to thrust myself before
  you, and so repeating my original error. But you will not
  misconstrue me. I know that we must keep apart for a long while;
  cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did. But I
  shall not go away. The place where you are is the one where my mind
  must live, wherever I might travel. And remember that I am
  unchangeably yours,--yours not with selfish wishes, but with a
  devotion that excludes such wishes.

  "God comfort you, my loving, large-souled Maggie. If every one else
  has misconceived you, remember that you have never been doubted by
  him whose heart recognized you ten years ago.

  "Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am not seen
  out of doors. I have only had nervous headaches,--no worse than I
  have sometimes had them before. But the overpowering heat inclines
  me to be perfectly quiescent in the daytime. I am strong enough to
  obey any word which shall tell me that I can serve you by word or
  deed.

                          "Yours to the last,
                           "_Philip Wakem_."

As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed under
her, her feelings again and again gathered themselves in a whispered
cry, always in the same words,--

"O God, is there any happiness in love that could make me forget
_their_ pain?"



Maggie and Lucy


By the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind that there was
only one way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at
St. Ogg's. Even with his twenty years' experience as a parish priest,
he was aghast at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her
in the face of evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and
appealed to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to
open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice, on
behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as powerless as
he was aware he would have been if he had attempted to influence the
shape of bonnets. Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened
to in silence; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions
among his hearers yielded much the same result as before. Miss
Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr. Kenn did
not deny that; how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put
that favorable interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the
supposition that required the utmost stretch of belief,--namely, that
none of the things said about Miss Tulliver were true,--still, since
they _had_ been said about her, they had cast an odor round her which
must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who had to take care
of her own reputation--and of Society. To have taken Maggie by the
hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall
not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring
mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest
efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater;
let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"--to
have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge,
generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in
evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that
cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have
any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after
perfect truth, justice, and love toward the individual men and women
who come across our own path. The ladies of St. Ogg's were not
beguiled by any wide speculative conceptions; but they had their
favorite abstraction, called Society, which served to make their
consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied their own
egoism,--thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and
turning their backs upon her. It was naturally disappointing to Dr.
Kenn, after two years of superfluous incense from his feminine
parishioners, to find them suddenly maintaining their views in
opposition to his; but then they maintained them in opposition to a
higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That Authority had
furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire where
their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide views as
to the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good
of Society, but on "a certain man" who was found in trouble by the
wayside.

Not that St. Ogg's was empty of women with some tenderness of heart
and conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness
in it as any other small trading town of that day. But until every
good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid,--too
timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings,
when these would place them in a minority. And the men at St. Ogg's
were not all brave, by any means; some of them were even fond of
scandal, and to an extent that might have given their conversation an
effeminate character, if it had not been distinguished by masculine
jokes, and by an occasional shrug of the shoulders at the mutual
hatred of women. It was the general feeling of the masculine mind at
St. Ogg's that women were not to be interfered with in their treatment
of each other.

And thus every direction in which Dr. Kenn had turned, in the hope of
procuring some kind recognition and some employment for Maggie, proved
a disappointment to him. Mrs. James Torry could not think of taking
Maggie as a nursery governess, even temporarily,--a young woman about
whom "such things had been said," and about whom "gentlemen joked";
and Miss Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and wanted a reader and
companion, felt quite sure that Maggie's mind must be of a quality
with which she, for her part, could not risk _any_ contact. Why did
not Miss Tulliver accept the shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It
did not become a girl like her to refuse it. Or else, why did she not
go out of the neighborhood, and get a situation where she was not
known? (It was not, apparently, of so much importance that she should
carry her dangerous tendencies into strange families unknown at St.
Ogg's.) She must be very bold and hardened to wish to stay in a parish
where she was so much stared at and whispered about.

Dr. Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the presence of
this opposition, as every firm man would have done, to contract a
certain strength of determination over and above what would have been
called forth by the end in view. He himself wanted a daily governess
for his younger children; and though he had hesitated in the first
instance to offer this position to Maggie, the resolution to protest
with the utmost force of his personal and priestly character against
her being crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive. Maggie
gratefully accepted an employment that gave her duties as well as a
support; her days would be filled now, and solitary evenings would be
a welcome rest. She no longer needed the sacrifice her mother made in
staying with her, and Mrs. Tulliver was persuaded to go back to the
Mill.

But now it began to be discovered that Dr. Kenn, exemplary as he had
hitherto appeared, had his crotchets, possibly his weaknesses. The
masculine mind of St. Ogg's smiled pleasantly, and did not wonder that
Kenn liked to see a fine pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined
to take so lenient a view of the past; the feminine mind, regarded at
that period as less powerful, took a more melancholy view of the case.
If Dr. Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that Miss Tulliver! It
was not safe to be too confident, even about the best of men; an
apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards; and though Peter's
denial was not a close precedent, his repentance was likely to be.

Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for many weeks,
before the dreadful possibility of her some time or other becoming the
Rector's wife had been talked of so often in confidence, that ladies
were beginning to discuss how they should behave to her in that
position. For Dr. Kenn, it had been understood, had sat in the
schoolroom half an hour one morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her
lessons,--nay, he had sat there every morning; he had once walked home
with her,--he almost _always_ walked home with her,--and if not, he
went to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she was! What
a _mother_ for those children! It was enough to make poor Mrs. Kenn
turn in her grave, that they should be put under the care of this girl
only a few weeks after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety as
to marry her before the year was out? The masculine mind was
sarcastic, and thought _not_.

The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witnessing a folly
in their Rector; at least their brother would be safe; and their
knowledge of Stephen's tenacity was a constant ground of alarm to
them, lest he should come back and marry Maggie. They were not among
those who disbelieved their brother's letter; but they had no
confidence in Maggie's adherence to her renunciation of him; they
suspected that she had shrunk rather from the elopement than from the
marriage, and that she lingered in St. Ogg's, relying on his return to
her. They had always thought her disagreeable; they now thought her
artful and proud; having quite as good grounds for that judgment as
you and I probably have for many strong opinions of the same kind.
Formerly they had not altogether delighted in the contemplated match
with Lucy, but now their dread of a marriage between Stephen and
Maggie added its momentum to their genuine pity and indignation on
behalf of the gentle forsaken girl, in making them desire that he
should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to leave home, she was
to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this August by going to the
coast with the Miss Guests; and it was in their plans that Stephen
should be induced to join them. On the very first hint of gossip
concerning Maggie and Dr. Kenn, the report was conveyed in Miss
Guest's letter to her brother.

Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt Glegg, or Dr.
Kenn, of Lucy's gradual progress toward recovery, and her thoughts
tended continually toward her uncle Deane's house; she hungered for an
interview with Lucy, if it were only for five minutes, to utter a word
of penitence, to be assured by Lucy's own eyes and lips that she did
not believe in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved and
trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle's indignation had not
closed his house against her, the agitation of such an interview would
have been forbidden to Lucy. Only to have seen her without speaking
would have been some relief; for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in
its very gentleness; a face that had been turned on hers with glad,
sweet looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory;
changed now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke. And as
the days passed on, that pale image became more and more distinct; the
picture grew and grew into more speaking definiteness under the
avenging hand of remorse; the soft hazel eyes, in their look of pain,
were bent forever on Maggie, and pierced her the more because she
could see no anger in them. But Lucy was not yet able to go to church,
or any place where Maggie could see her; and even the hope of that
departed, when the news was told her by aunt Glegg, that Lucy was
really going away in a few days to Scarborough with the Miss Guests,
who had been heard to say that they expected their brother to meet
them there.

Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict is, can know
what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after
hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,--only those who have known what it
is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would
dread the sleeping-potion that was to still her own pain.

She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window wide open
toward the river; the sense of oppressive heat adding itself
undistinguishably to the burthen of her lot. Seated on a chair against
the window, with her arm on the windowsill she was looking blankly at
the flowing river, swift with the backward-rushing tide, struggling to
see still the sweet face in its unreproaching sadness, that seemed now
from moment to moment to sink away and be hidden behind a form that
thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing the door open, she
thought Mrs. Jakin was coming in with her supper, as usual; and with
that repugnance to trivial speech which comes with languor and
wretchedness, she shrank from turning round and saying she wanted
nothing; good little Mrs. Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant
remarks. But the next moment, without her having discerned the sound
of a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard a
voice close to her saying, "Maggie!"

The face was there,--changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were
there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.

"Maggie!" the soft voice said. "Lucy!" answered a voice with a sharp
ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round Maggie's neck,
and leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow.

"I stole out," said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat down
close to Maggie and held her hand, "when papa and the rest were away.
Alice is come with me. I asked her to help me. But I must only stay a
little while, because it is so late."

It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else. They sat
looking at each other. It seemed as if the interview must end without
more speech, for speech was very difficult. Each felt that there would
be something scorching in the words that would recall the
irretrievable wrong. But soon, as Maggie looked, every distinct
thought began to be overflowed by a wave of loving penitence, and
words burst forth with a sob.

"God bless you for coming, Lucy."

The sobs came thick on each other after that.

"Maggie, dear, be comforted," said Lucy now, putting her cheek against
Maggie's again. "Don't grieve." And she sat still, hoping to soothe
Maggie with that gentle caress.

"I didn't mean to deceive you, Lucy," said Maggie, as soon as she
could speak. "It always made me wretched that I felt what I didn't
like you to know. It was because I thought it would all be conquered,
and you might never see anything to wound you."

"I know, dear," said Lucy. "I know you never meant to make me unhappy.
It is a trouble that has come on us all; you have more to bear than I
have--and you gave him up, when--you did what it must have been very
hard to do."

They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and
cheeks leaned together.

"Lucy," Maggie began again, "_he_ struggled too. He wanted to be true
to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him--he will be happy
then----"

These words were wrung forth from Maggie's deepest soul, with an
effort like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man. Lucy trembled and
was silent.

A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered
and said,--

"I daren't stay any longer, Miss Deane. They'll find it out, and
there'll be such anger at your coming out so late."

Lucy rose and said, "Very well, Alice,--in a minute."

"I'm to go away on Friday, Maggie," she added, when Alice had closed
the door again. "When I come back, and am strong, they will let me do
as I like. I shall come to you when I please then."

"Lucy," said Maggie, with another great effort, "I pray to God
continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to you any more."

She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and looked up
into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never forgot that look.

"Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of
confession in it, "you are better than I am. I can't----"

She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other
again in a last embrace.



The Last Conflict


In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting in her
lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies that were forever
slain and rising again. It was past midnight, and the rain was beating
heavily against the window, driven with fitful force by the rushing,
loud-moaning wind. For the day after Lucy's visit there had been a
sudden change in the weather; the heat and drought had given way to
cold variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals; and she had
been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until the weather
should become more settled. In the counties higher up the Floss the
rains had been continuous, and the completion of the harvest had been
arrested. And now, for the last two days, the rains on this lower
course of the river had been incessant, so that the old men had shaken
their heads and talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of
weather, happening about the equinox, brought on the great floods,
which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great misery. But
the younger generation, who had seen several small floods, thought
lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings; and Bob Jakin,
naturally prone to take a hopeful view of his own luck, laughed at his
mother when she regretted their having taken a house by the riverside,
observing that but for that they would have had no boats, which were
the most lucky of possessions in case of a flood that obliged them to
go to a distance for food.

But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their beds
now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the morrow;
threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws after falls of snow,
had often passed off, in the experience of the younger ones; and at
the very worst, the banks would be sure to break lower down the river
when the tide came in with violence, and so the waters would be
carried off, without causing more than temporary inconvenience, and
losses that would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would
relieve.

All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight; all except some
solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was seated in her little parlor
toward the river, with one candle, that left everything dim in the
room except a letter which lay before her on the table. That letter,
which had come to her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her
up far on into the night, unconscious how the hours were going,
careless of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across her
mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would be no
more waking for her into this struggling earthly life.

Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been to the
Rectory for the last time. The heavy rain would have prevented her
from going since; but there was another reason. Dr. Kenn, at first
enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and
slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more
fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male
parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to
overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of
resistance. Dr. Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the
matter, was still inclined to persevere,--was still averse to give way
before a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible; but he was
finally wrought upon by the consideration of the peculiar
responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the appearance of
evil,--an "appearance" that is always dependent on the average quality
of surrounding minds. Where these minds are low and gross, the area of
that "appearance" is proportionately widened. Perhaps he was in danger
of acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his duty to succumb.
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the
most painful course; and to recede was always painful to Dr. Kenn. He
made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's
for a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy
as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to
countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his
parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a
clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical friend of
his, who might possibly take her into his own family as governess;
and, if not, would probably know of some other available position for
a young woman in whose welfare Dr. Kenn felt a strong interest.

Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say nothing but a
faint "Thank you, I shall be grateful"; and she walked back to her
lodgings, through the driving rain, with a new sense of desolation.
She must be a lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh faces, that
would look at her wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to
her; she must begin a new life, in which she would have to rouse
herself to receive new impressions; and she was so unspeakably,
sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the erring; even
those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to
complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of
life, which was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to
some other sufferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new
force of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her lonely
room, with a window darkened by the cloud and the driving rain,
thinking of that future, and wrestling for patience; for what repose
could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling?

And on the third day--this day of which she had just sat out the
close--the letter had come which was lying on the table before her.

The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from Holland; he was at
Mudport again, unknown to any of his friends, and had written to her
from that place, enclosing the letter to a person whom he trusted in
St. Ogg's. From beginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach;
an appeal against her useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against
that perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,
for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good,--_his_
hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that single overpowering
passion, that worship, which a man never gives to a woman more than
once in his life.

"They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As if I should
believe that! Perhaps they have told you some such fables about me.
Perhaps they tell you I've been 'travelling.' My body has been dragged
about somewhere; but _I_ have never travelled from the hideous place
where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage
to find you gone.

"Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose injury is like
mine? Who besides me has met that long look of love that has burnt
itself into my soul, so that no other image can come there? Maggie,
call me back to you! Call me back to life and goodness! I am banished
from both now. I have no motives; I am indifferent to everything. Two
months have only deepened the certainty that I can never care for life
without you. Write me one word; say 'Come!' In two days I should be
with you. Maggie, have you forgotten what it was to be together,--to
be within reach of a look, to be within hearing of each other's
voice?"

When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real temptation
had only just begun. At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn
with unworn courage from the warm light; but how, when we have trodden
far in the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary; how,
if there is a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again
to the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from under the
pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are
likely to be forgotten--till the pain has been escaped from.

For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain. For hours
every other thought that she strove to summon was thrust aside by the
image of Stephen waiting for the single word that would bring him to
her. She did not _read_ the letter: she heard him uttering it, and the
voice shook her with its old strange power. All the day before she had
been filled with the vision of a lonely future through which she must
carry the burthen of regret, upheld only by clinging faith. And here,
close within her reach, urging itself upon her even as a claim, was
another future, in which hard endurance and effort were to be
exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on another's loving strength!
And yet that promise of joy in the place of sadness did not make the
dire force of the temptation to Maggie.

It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of
her own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once
start from her seat to reach the pen and paper, and write "Come!"

But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense of
contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and
clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she
must wait; she must pray; the light that had forsaken her would come
again; she should feel again what she had felt when she had fled away,
under an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony,--to conquer love;
she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by her, when
Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound her to the
calmer past.

She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse to change
her attitude, without active force enough even for the mental act of
prayer; only waiting for the light that would surely come again. It
came with the memories that no passion could long quench; the long
past came back to her, and with it the fountains of self-renouncing
pity and affection, of faithfulness and resolve. The words that were
marked by the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago
learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent for
themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the loud driving of
the rain against the window and the loud moan and roar of the wind. "I
have received the Cross, I have received it from Thy hand; I will bear
it, and bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."

But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but in a
sob,--"Forgive me, Stephen! It will pass away. You will come back to
her."

She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn slowly
on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the last word of
parting.

"I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will be
before death comes! I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have
patience and strength? Am I to struggle and fall and repent again? Has
life other trials as hard for me still?"

With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees against the
table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the
Unseen Pity that would be with her to the end. Surely there was
something being taught her by this experience of great need; and she
must be learning a secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that
the less erring could hardly know? "O God, if my life is to be long,
let me live to bless and comfort----"

At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about
her knees and feet; it was water flowing under her. She started up;
the stream was flowing under the door that led into the passage. She
was not bewildered for an instant; she knew it was the flood!

The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last twelve hours
seemed to have left a great calm in her; without screaming, she
hurried with the candle upstairs to Bob Jakin's bedroom. The door was
ajar; she went in and shook him by the shoulder.

"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make
the boats safe."

She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby,
burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the
waters were rising fast. There was a step down into the room at the
door leading from the staircase; she saw that the water was already on
a level with the step. While she was looking, something came with a
tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the
old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring in after it.

"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the boats!"

And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged through the water,
which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the
candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill,
and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and
protruding through the window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying
without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.

"Why, they're both here,--both the boats," said Bob, as he got into
the one where Maggie was. "It's wonderful this fastening isn't broke
too, as well as the mooring."

In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it, and
mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred.
We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in
their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible expedients for
the safety of the helpless indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up,
had waked him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague
impression of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be
protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off,
so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.

"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in at the
chambers before long,--th' house is so low. I've more mind to get
Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, if I could, and
trusten to the water,--for th' old house is none so safe. And if I let
go the boat--but _you_," he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of
his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her
hand and her black hair streaming.

Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the
line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water,
with a force that carried them far past the meeting current of the
river.

In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that
she had suddenly passed away from that life which she had been
dreading; it was the transition of death, without its agony,--and she
was alone in the darkness with God.

The whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the threads of
ordinary association were broken; she sank down on the seat clutching
the oar mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception
of her position. The first thing that waked her to fuller
consciousness was the cessation of the rain, and a perception that the
darkness was divided by the faintest light, which parted the
overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. She was
driven out upon the flood,--that awful visitation of God which her
father used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish
dreams. And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old
home, and Tom, and her mother,--they had all listened together.

"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried out, in the dim
loneliness.

What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly
destroyed it. They might be in danger, in distress,--her mother and
her brother, alone there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was
strained now on that thought; and she saw the long-loved faces looking
for help into the darkness, and finding none.

She was floating in smooth water now,--perhaps far on the overflooded
fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of
her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the
curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her
whereabout,--that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot
toward which all her anxieties tended.

Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level, the gradual
uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining blackness of
objects above the glassy dark! Yes, she must be out on the fields;
those were the tops of hedgerow trees. Which way did the river lie?
Looking behind her, she saw the lines of black trees; looking before
her, there were none; then the river lay before her. She seized an oar
and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope;
the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and
she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a mound
where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in
the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung round her, and her
streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly
conscious of any bodily sensations,--except a sensation of strength,
inspired by mighty emotion. Along with the sense of danger and
possible rescue for those long-remembered beings at the old home,
there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her brother; what
quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in
the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of
our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive
mortal needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love
toward her brother that swept away all the later impressions of hard,
cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the deep,
underlying, unshakable memories of early union.

But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and near to her
Maggie could discern the current of the river. The dark mass must
be--yes, it was--St. Ogg's. Ah, now she knew which way to look for the
first glimpse of the well-known trees--the gray willows, the now
yellowing chestnuts--and above them the old roof! But there was no
color, no shape yet; all was faint and dim. More and more strongly the
energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as if her life were
a stored-up force that was being spent in this hour, unneeded for any
future.

She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she would
never be able to pass the Ripple and approach the house; this was the
thought that occurred to her, as she imagined with more and more
vividness the state of things round the old home. But then she might
be carried very far down, and be unable to guide her boat out of the
current again. For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to
press upon her; but there was no choice of courses, no room for
hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now
without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance and
the growing light she began to discern the objects that she knew must
be the well-known trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing,
muddy current that must be the strangely altered Ripple.

Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash against
her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. What were
those masses?

For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony of dread.
She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being floated along,
more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was
transient; it passed away before the oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's.
She had passed the mouth of the Ripple, then; _now_, she must use all
her skill and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of
the current. She could see now that the bridge was broken down; she
could see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery
field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the river,--such as had
been laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.

With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up again to
paddle; but the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river,
and she was carried along beyond the bridge. She could hear shouts
from the windows overlooking the river, as if the people there were
calling to her. It was not till she had passed on nearly to Tofton
that she could get the boat clear of the current. Then with one
yearning look toward her uncle Deane's house that lay farther down the
river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might across
the watery fields, back toward the Mill. Color was beginning to awake
now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the
tints of the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right,
and the home chestnuts,--oh, how deep they lay in the water,--deeper
than the trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill--where
was it? Those heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,--what had they
meant? But it was not the house,--the house stood firm; drowned up to
the first story, but still firm,--or was it broken in at the end
toward the Mill?

With panting joy that she was there at last,--joy that overcame all
distress,--Maggie neared the front of the house. At first she heard no
sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat was on a level with the
upstairs window. She called out in a loud, piercing voice,--

"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!"

Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard
Tom's voice,--

"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?"

"It is I, Tom,--Maggie. Where is mother?"

"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I'll
come down to the lower window."

"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he
opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.

"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in
quickly. Is there no one else?"

"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat; "I fear the man is drowned; he
was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part of the Mill fell with
the crash of trees and stones against it; I've shouted again and
again, and there has been no answer. Give me the oars, Maggie."

It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide
water,--he face to face with Maggie,--that the full meaning of what
had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with so overpowering a
force,--it was such a new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in
life that had lain beyond his vision, which he had fancied so keen and
clear,--that he was unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing
at each other,--Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from a
weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humiliation.
Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though he could ask
no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely
protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes,
and the lips found a word they could utter,--the old childish
"Magsie!"

Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious,
wondrous happiness that is one with pain.

As soon as she could speak, she said, "We will go to Lucy, Tom; we'll
go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the rest."

Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor
Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the river again, and
soon they would be at Tofton.

"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps
they have got Lucy there."

Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by
the river. Some wooden machinery had just given way on one of the
wharves, and huge fragments were being floated along. The sun was
rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out in
dreadful clearness around them; in dreadful clearness floated onward
the hurrying, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was
working its way along under the Tofton houses observed their danger,
and shouted, "Get out of the current!"

But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw
death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal
fellowship, made one wide mass across the stream.

"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
oars, and clasping her.

The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the
huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.

But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden
water.

The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an
embrace never to be parted; living through again in one supreme moment
the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed
the daisied fields together.

Conclusion

Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine, and with
human labor. The desolation wrought by that flood had left little
visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth
autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among
the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were
busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and
unlading.

And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living,
except those whose end we know.

Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not
rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new
growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills
underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To
the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.

Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard--where the brick
grave that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid
prostrate upon it after the flood--had recovered all its grassy order
and decent quiet.

Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the
flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was
visited at different moments by two men who both felt that their
keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there.

One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but
that was years after.

The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the
trees of the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover,
like a revisiting spirit.

The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the
names it was written,--

               "In their death they were not divided."

 The Return to the Mill Five days after Stephen and Maggie first disappear, Tom is back at Dorlcote Mill. Thanks to the news that Bob Jakin saw Maggie and Stephen get off a boat together, he knows there has been no accident. He sees Maggie approaching, and can tell immediately that she is not married, confirming his worst fears. Maggie tells him that she has come to him for refuge, and to confess everything, but he tells her that she will never have a home with him for she has disgraced their family and deceived and deeply hurt those who cared about her most. He tells her he will support her if she needs it, but she can never enter his home. Mrs. Tulliver, overhearing this, tells Maggie that she will go with her. Not daring to seek shelter with any of the aunts, they go to Bob Jakin's. Bob happily takes them in, and tells Maggie that he and his wife named their baby after her. Chapter II - St. Ogg's Passes Judgment Because Maggie returns to St. Ogg's unmarried, everyone assumes Stephen chose not to marry her, and that she is fallen, so she is condemned by the town. Despite a letter Stephen writes to his father in which he assumes all of the blame, disapproving gossip spreads through the parish. Stephen traveled on to Holland from York and thus stays away from Lucy for the time being. Maggie lives in a state of constant guilt and despair, not expecting to ever feel happiness again, hoping only to never give into another such temptation. Maggie goes to see Dr. Kenn, and tells him everything. He says that he admires her instinct to come back to her roots and that it is a very Christian ideal, but that in this case, he fears that the town has condemned her beyond the actual evils of her case, and she might be much happier at a distance. Maggie says she can't bear to cut herself off, and she thinks her best chance of showing Lucy how sorry she is is to stay in St. Ogg's. Dr. Kenn promises to help her any way he can. Chapter III - Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us Mrs. Glegg, when Maggie first disappears, is sure she is dead, for she cannot believe the alternative, and she scorns Tom for doing so so easily. When Maggie returns unscathed, she doesn't emerge from her bedroom until she hears of the arrival of Stephen's letter, which she feels gives her enough ground to defend Maggie to anyone who insults her. She tries to talk to Tom about it, but even in the face of Stephen's letter largely absolving Maggie, he is irresolute and only believes the worst in his sister because of her history of indulging whims. Mrs. Tulliver goes to see Mrs. Glegg, who tells her that Maggie is always welcome under her roof and she will defend her from those who speak ill against her. Maggie is very grateful to hear this, but still firmly wants to be independent, and doesn't feel prepared to see anyone besides her mother and Dr. Kenn just yet. Mrs. Tulliver has also been to see Lucy, who has heard Stephen's letter, and seems to be regaining her health. Maggie is desperate to hear news of Philip, but Dr. Kenn hasn't heard anything verifiable about him and her mother can't find out anything. Finally, she gets a letter from him in which he tells her that he saw what was happening between her and Stephen and he knows that she tried to resist it for Philip's sake as much as she could. Ultimately,he admires her and is better for the chance to have loved her, and does not want her to feel any pain for his sake. Indeed, he will always love her. Chapter IV - Maggie and Lucy Dr. Kenn tries to find employment for Maggie, but all the women of St. Ogg's are still set against her. Finally it becomes clear that the only option is for him to hire her himself as governess to his children, which she gratefully accepts. This leads the townspeople to speculate on the relationship between the two of them. Stephen's sisters, having been dismayed by Stephen's attachment to Maggie, report these rumors to him by mail. Maggie wants desperately to see Lucy, but knows that she can't go to her house, and Lucy isn't well enough to be seen by chance anywhere in the town. Lucy sneaks out one night, however, to come and see Lucy, and they embrace. Lucy tells her that she is going away with Stephen's sisters in a few days, but when she returns and has regained her full strength, she'll be able to see Maggie whenever she wants to. They embrace tearfully. Chapter V - The Final Conflict Dr. Kenn hears of the rumors spreading about his relationship with Maggie, and finally feels that because of his moral responsibility to his parishioners, he can't give them any reason to doubt him. He releases Maggie and tells her that he thinks she must move to another town. She goes home and, feeling very weary, tries to mentally prepare herself for such a change. It rains constantly, so she is stuck inside. A letter from Stephen arrives. He has, unbeknownst to anyone, returned to Mudport, and he pleads with Maggie to let him come to her. She feels, suddenly, that her temptation has only just begun, for after the two months of constant pain, the joy his love offers feels even more powerful than it did when she first renounced it, and she is so pained by the despair in his letter that she wants more than anything to relieve him of it. She comes very close to telling him to come, but holds out, instead burning his letter and deciding to write to him in the morning to say goodbye forever. Suddenly she realizes that the house is flooding. She runs upstairs to wake Bob and his family, and they get into the boats. Hers is swept away, and she knows she must try to make her way to the mill to help her mother and Tom. She finally makes it to the mill, where she finds Tom is alone - Mrs. Tulliver has gone to the Pullets' - and he climbs into the boat with her. They row towards the town to check on Lucy, but soon the current brings huge debris towards them, and they have no chance to get out of the way. The mass goes right over their boat, which rises again soon after, but without Maggie and Tom in it. They drown together. Conclusion Five years later, St. Ogg's looks much like it did before the flood, although there are some scars that remain. Besides Maggie and Tom, everyone survived the flood. Both Stephen and Philip still visit Maggie's tomb; Stephen eventually marries but Philip remains solitary.

