The first
advances which Mr. Brock's growing admiration for the widow had
led him to make in the early days of their intercourse had been
met on her side by an appeal to his forbearance which had closed
his lips for the future. She had satisfied him, at once and
forever, that the one place in her heart which he could hope to
occupy was the place of a friend. He loved her well enough to
take what she would give him: friends they became, and friends
they remained from that time forth. No jealous dread of another
man's succeeding where he had failed imbittered the clergyman's
placid relations with the woman whom he loved. Of the few
resident gentlemen in the neighborhood, none were ever admitted
by Mrs. Armadale to more than the merest acquaintance with her.
Contentedly self-buried in her country retreat, she was proof
against every social attraction that would have tempted other
women in her position and at her age. Mr. Brock and his
newspaper, appearing with monotonous regularity at her tea-table
three times a week, told her all she knew or cared to know of the
great outer world which circled round the narrow and changeless
limits of her daily life.
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