or should submit to an imposition of the same upon them in terrorem.
Mysterious truly, but most attractive! As Lady Bountiful of a district,
she would have in her maturity the majestic stature to suit a
dispensation of earthly good things. And, strangely, here she was, at
this moment, rivalling to excelling all others of her sex (he verified it
in the crowd of female faces passing), when they, if they but knew the
facts, would visit her very appearance beside them on a common footing as
an intrusion and a scandal. To us who know, such matters are indeed
wonderful!

Moved by reflective compassion, Mr. Barmby resumed the wooer's note, some
few steps after he had responded to the salutation of Dartrey Fenellan
and Colonel Sudley. She did not speak. She turned her forehead to him;
and the absence of the world from her eyes chilled his tongue.

He declined the pleasure of the lunch with the Duvidney ladies. He
desired to be alone, to question himself fasting, to sound the deed he
had done; for he had struck on a suspicion of selfishness in it: and
though Love must needs be an egoism, Love is no warrant for the doing of
a hurt to the creature beloved. Thoughts upon Skepsey and the tale of
his Matilda Pridden's labours in poor neighbourhoods, to which he had
been inattentive during the journey down to the sea, invaded him; they
were persistent. He was a worthy man, having within him the spiritual
impulse curiously ready to take the place where a material disappointment
left vacancy. The vulgar sort embrace the devil at that stage. Before
the day had sunk, Mr. Barmby's lowest wish was, to be a light, as the
instrument of his Church in her ministrations amid the haunts of sin and
slime, to such plain souls as Daniel Skepsey and Matilda Pridden. And he
could still be that, if Nesta, in the chapters of the future, changed her
mind. She might; for her good she would; he reserved the hope. His