"It would be madness," was the result of deep and long thought, "to go any further. I like him well enough and admire him greatly, and I daresay--no, let me be quite candid--I _know_ he likes me. I daresay we are better disposed towards each other than one tenth of the people who marry, but that is not enough.
"We did not fall in love with one another at first sight. It was no boy and girl attachment. We were attracted towards one another by the intellectual sides of our characters. I thought I was wiser than other girls in not allowing my fancy to direct my fate. I thought he and I together might achieve great things. I am now afraid it is as great, even a greater, mistake to marry for intellect than to marry for money or position.
"I have made up my mind now. Nothing shall change me. My decision is as much for his good as my own. Last night was not the climax of what would be. It was only the first of a long line of difficulties or quarrels that would increase as time went on.
"We have been enduring one another out of admiration for one another, not loving one another for our own and love's own sake.
"It will cost me many a pang, but it must be done. I shall make no sign. I shall make no announcement. No one has been formally told we are engaged, and no one has any business to know. If people have guessed it, let them now guess the engagement has been broken off. I am not bound to enlighten them."
Then she rose and found materials for a letter, and wrote:
"I have been thinking a great deal of the talk we had last night after dinner, and I have come to the conclusion that it was all for the best. We should never be able to agree. I think the least said now the better. Our engagement has not been announced to anyone. Nothing need be said about its being broken off. I hope this arrangement will be carried out with as little pain to either as possible. I shall not send you back your letters. I am sure getting back letters is always painful, and ought to be avoided. I shall burn yours, and I ask you to do the same with any notes you may have of mine. Neither will I return the few things that cannot be burned. None of them is, I think, of any intrinsic value to you beyond the value it had between you and me. I shall keep them for a week and then destroy them.