Falconer was silent. Without looking up from the floor on which her
eyes had rested all the time he spoke, Lady Georgina said at last,
'Then what is my next duty? What is the thing that lies nearest to
me?'
'That, I repeat, belongs to your every-day history. No one can
answer that question but yourself. Your next duty is just to
determine what your next duty is.--Is there nothing you neglect? Is
there nothing you know you ought not to do?--You would know your
duty, if you thought in earnest about it, and were not ambitious of
great things.'
'Ah then,' responded Lady Georgina, with an abandoning sigh, 'I
suppose it is something very commonplace, which will make life more
dreary than ever. That cannot help me.'
'It will, if it be as dreary as reading the newspapers to an old
deaf aunt. It will soon lead you to something more. Your duty will
begin to comfort you at once, but will at length open the unknown
fountain of life in your heart.'
Lady Georgina lifted up her head in despair, looked at Falconer
through eyes full of tears, and said vehemently,
'Mr. Falconer, you can have no conception how wretched a life like
mine is. And the futility of everything is embittered by the
consciousness that it is from no superiority to such things that I
do not care for them.'
'It is from superiority to such things that you do not care for
them. You were not made for such things. They cannot fill your
heart.
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