"_Don't_ say that! Don't you suppose I understand how absolutely natural
it was?... Everybody'd have thought just the same, in your place...."

Carlisle had turned away from his translucent eye, finding it
unbearable; she descended from the stair, took an irresolute step or two
over the ruined floor of the once stately court. And then she halted,
having really nowhere to go, staring fixedly toward the
distant doors....

Mamma's nearness could not help her now. Hugo's fortifying love was no
buffer against this extraordinary moment. All alone Cally stood with the
contemned religious fellow who had unhorsed and disarmed her once again,
and now there would be no more weapons. And there was a worse thing here
than her mean looking for hypocrisy, and the discovery, instead, of a
mad generosity, a princely folly. Bad enough all that seemed; very bad
indeed: but Cally's painful moment seemed to cut deeper yet.

After all the struggling, had it come to this? Was the author of the
Beach opinion of her a man whom she must greatly admire?...

Behind her stood the stairway, which led on up to mamma and the
embracing security of the victorious order. Behind her also stood the
man, the royal giver of the granary where finer-feathered birds now made
merry among the spoils. With what speech should Cally Heth, mocked and
jeered by her feeble "I'm sorry," turn now and pass him?...

She heard the sound of his unequal footstep, and then his voice behind
her, stirred with a sudden feeling:

"Why, it's not a thing to be sorry about--how could you possibly have