disguises delusion successfully under the garb of truth.

Day after day, the false conviction grew on Sydney's mind that
Herbert Linley was comparing the life he led now with the happier
life which he remembered at Mount Morven. Day after day, her
unreasoning fear contemplated the time when Herbert Linley would
leave her friendless, in the world that had no place in it for
women like herself. Delusion--fatal delusion that looked like
truth! Morally weak as he might be, the man whom she feared to
trust had not yet entirely lost the sense which birth and
breeding had firmly fastened in him--the sense of honor. Acting
under that influence, he was (if the expression may be permitted)
consistent even in inconsistency. With equal sincerity of
feeling, he reproached himself for his infidelity toward the
woman whom he had deserted, and devoted himself to his duty
toward the woman whom he had misled. In Sydney's presence--suffer
as he might under the struggle to maintain his resolution when he
was alone--he kept his intercourse with her studiously gentle in
manner, and considerate in language; his conduct offered
assurances for the future which she could only see through the
falsifying medium of her own distrust.

In the delusion that now possessed her she read, over and over
again, the letter which Captain Bennydeck had addressed to her
father; she saw, more and more clearly, the circumstances which
associated her situation with the situation of the poor girl who
had closed her wasted life among the nuns in a French convent.

Two results followed on this state of things.