She--she, of all beings, to be
suspected as a thief, and by the very man whose life she had saved!
She was willing enough to confess herself--and confessed herself night
and morning--a miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean
birds, deceitful, and desperately wicked--except in that. The
conscious innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even
when she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed
herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her little
chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang up and
paced again: but she went into no trance--she dare not. The grief was
too great; she felt that, if she once gave way enough to lose her
self-possession, she should go mad. And the first, and perhaps not the
least good effect of that fiery trial was, that it compelled her to
a stern self-restraint, to which her will, weakened by mental
luxuriousness, had been long a stranger.
But a fiery trial it was. The first wild (and yet not unnatural)
fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day by
day, by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of him as her
husband: only as a friendless stranger to be helped and comforted. And
that he was worthy of help; that some great future was in store
for him; that he was a chosen vessel marked out for glory, she had
persuaded herself utterly; and the persuasion grew in her day by day,
as she heard more and more of his cleverness, honesty, and kindliness,
mysterious and, to her, miraculous learning.
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