She understood
that his love was an affection resulting from pity and the strong,
genial forces of his nature. The girl who could kindle his spirit and
inspire the best and most enthusiastic efforts of his manhood must be
like Miss Wildmere--strong, beautiful, capable of keeping step with
him under society's critical eyes, and not a mere shadow of a woman
like herself. Her morbidly acute fancy recalled the ballroom. She saw
him again after his return, encircling the fair girl with his arm, and
looking down into her eyes with a meaning unmistakable. Oh, why had
she gone to that fatal party! The past, in contrast to the present and
the promise of the future, seemed happiness itself.
What could she do? What should she do? The more she thought of it
the more unendurable her position appeared. In her vivid
self-consciousness the old relations could not continue. Heretofore
his caresses had been a matter of course, of habit. They could be so
no longer. She shrank from them with inexpressible fear, knowing they
would bring what little blood she possessed to her face and very brow
in tell-tale floods. The one event from which her sensitive womanhood
drew back in deepest dread was his knowledge of her love.
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