she could not.  His features had gained in attractiveness; the refinement which made them an index to his character was more noticeable at the first glance, or perhaps she was better able to distinguish it.  The slight bluntness in his manner reminded her of the moral force which she had known only as something to be resisted; it was now one of the influences that drew her to him.  Had she not always admitted that he stood far above the other men of his class whom she used to know?  Between his mind and hers there was distinct kinship; the sense that he had both power and right to judge her explained in a great measure her attitude of defiance towards him when she was determined to break away from her humble conditions.  All along, had not one of her main incentives to work and strive been the resolve to justify herself in his view, to prove to him that she possessed talent, to show herself to him as one whom the world admired?  The repugnance with which she thought of meeting him, when she came home with her father, meant in truth that she dreaded to be assured that he could only shrink from her.  All her vital force.. setting in this wild current, her self. deception complete, she experienced the humility of supreme egoism—­that state wherein self multiplies its claims to pity in passionate support of its demand for the object of desire.  She felt capable of throwing herself at Sidney’s feet, and imploring him not to withdraw from her the love of which he had given her so many assurances.  She gazed at her scarred face until the image was blurred with tears; then, as though there were luxury in weeping, sobbed for an hour, crouching down in a corner of her room.  Even though his love were as dead as her beauty, must lib not be struck to the heart with compassion, realising her woeful lot?  She asked nothing more eagerly than to humiliate herself before him, to confess that her pride was broken.  Not a charge he could bring against her but Bile would admit its truth.  Had she been humble enough last night?  When he came again—­and he must soon—­she would throw aside every vestige of dignity, lest he should think that she was strong enough to bear her misery alone.  No matter how poor-spirited she seemed, if only she could move his sympathies.

Poor rebel heart!  Beat for beat, in these moments it matched itself with that of the purest woman who surrenders to a despairing love.  Had one charged her with insincerity, how vehemently would her conscience have declared against the outrage!  Natures such as hers are as little to be judged by that which is conventionally the highest standard as by that which is the lowest.  The tendencies which we agree to call good and bad became in her merely directions of a native force which was at all times in revolt against circumstance.  Characters thus moulded may go far in achievement, but can never pass beyond the bounds of suffering.  Never is the world their friend, nor the world’s law.  As often as our conventions give us the opportunity, we crush them out of being; they are noxious; they threaten the frame of society.  Oftenest the crushing is done in such a way that the hapless creatures seem to have brought about their own destruction.  Let us congratulate ourselves; in one way or other it is assured that they shall not trouble us long.