On the contrary, she was possessed by the
notion that she had done him a great wrong, and shrank in horror from the
danger of rendering it irretrievable. She had never thought the thing out
as between her and him, never even said to herself that he too had been to
blame. Her exaggerated notion of the share she had in the fault, had lodged
and got fixed in her mind, partly from her acquaintance with the popular
judgment concerning such as she, and partly from her humble readiness to
take any blame to herself. Even had she been capable of comparing the
relative consequences, the injury she had done his prospects as a minister,
would have seemed to her revering soul a far greater wrong than any
suffering or loss he had brought upon her. For what was she beside him?
What was the ruin of her life to the frustration of such prospects as his?
The sole alleviation of her misery was that she seemed hitherto to have
escaped involving him in the results of her lack of self-restraint, which
results, she was certain, remained concealed from him, as from every one in
any way concerned with him in them.
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