CHAPTER XXXII.
STORM AND STRESS And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace-- To live on still in love, and yet in vain; To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.
-- ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
"C'est le premier pas qui coute," and Malcolm proved the truth of the old French proverb, as he dismissed his fly and walked up the dark drive towards the Wood House.
He no longer felt the hot and cold fits that had shaken him as though with inward ague on his previous visit.

He had seen Elizabeth again, had at least retained his outward calmness, and now he felt more sure of himself.
"The pains and penalties of life," Leah had said to him once, and he had thought the expression a strange one on the lips of so beautiful a woman; but he knew better now, and how such pains and penalties fall to the share of many men.

"It is all in the day's work," he muttered as he rang the bell, for it was Malcolm's nature to philosophise even in trouble.
It was only six o'clock, and the two sisters were sitting together in the fire-lit twilight.

Dinah was lying back in her easy-chair with her eyes closed, but Elizabeth had drawn her chair opposite the fire, and sat with her chin supported by her hands, gazing fixedly at the blazing logs with an absorbed gravity that again surprised Malcolm.
When they heard the visitor announced they both started to their feet and came towards him, but it was Elizabeth who spoke first.

"Mr.
Herrick, this is too good of you.