That, no doubt, was the fault
of her exaggerated sensibility to outward things: she was
frightened to see how it enslaved her. A day or two before
she had supposed the sense of honour was her deepest
sentiment: if she had smiled at the conventions of others it
was because they were too trivial, not because they were too
grave. There were certain dishonours with which she had
never dreamed that any pact could be made: she had had an
incorruptible passion for good faith and fairness.
She had supposed that, once Darrow was gone, once she was
safe from the danger of seeing and hearing him, this high
devotion would sustain her. She had believed it would be
possible to separate the image of the man she had thought
him from that of the man he was. She had even foreseen the
hour when she might raise a mournful shrine to the memory of
the Darrow she had loved, without fear that his double's
shadow would desecrate it. But now she had begun to
understand that the two men were really one. The Darrow she
worshipped was inseparable from the Darrow she abhorred; and
the inevitable conclusion was that both must go, and she be
left in the desert of a sorrow without memories...
But if the future was thus void, the present was all too
full. Never had blow more complex repercussions; and to
remember Owen was to cease to think of herself. What
impulse, what apprehension, had sent him suddenly to Paris?
And why had he thought it needful to conceal his going from
her? When Sophy Viner had left, it had been with the
understanding that he was to await her summons; and it
seemed improbable that he would break his pledge, and seek
her without leave, unless his lover's intuition had warned
him of some fresh danger.
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