In the following weary days of suffering and weakness, she realized that she was very human, and not at all the exalted heroine that she had unconsciously come to regard herself.  The suitor whom she had thought to dismiss in contempt and anger, and to have done with, could not be banished from her mind.  The fact that he had proved himself to be all that she had thought him did not satisfy her, for the reason that he had apparently shown himself to be so much more.  She had judged him superficially, and punished him accordingly.  She had condemned him unsparingly for traits which, except for a few short months, had been her own characteristics.  While it was true that they seemed more unworthy in a man, still they were essentially the same.

“But he was not a man,” she sighed.  “He was scarcely more than the selfish boy that wealth, indulgence, and fashionable life had made him.  Why was I so blind to this?  Why could I not have seen that nothing had ever touched him deeply enough to show what he was, or, at least, of what he was capable?  What was Strahan before his manhood was awakened?  A little gossiping exquisite.  Even Mr. Lane, who was always better than any of us, has changed wonderfully since he has had exceptional motives for noble action.  What was I, myself, last June, when I was amusing myself at the expense of a man whom I knew to be so good and true?  In view of all this, instead of having a little charity for Mr. Merwyn, who, no doubt, is only the natural product of the influences of his life, I only tolerated him in the vindictive hope of giving the worst blow that a woman can inflict.  I might have seen that he had a deeper nature; at least, I might have hoped that he had, and given him a chance to reveal it.  Perhaps there has never been one who tried to help him toward true manhood.  He virtually said that his mother was a Southern fanatic, and his associations have been with those abroad who sympathized with her.  Is it strange that a mere boy of twenty-one should be greatly influenced by his mother and her aristocratic friends?  He said his father was a Northern man, and he may have imbibed the notion that he could not fight on either side.  Well, if he will give up such a false idea, if he will show that he is not cold-blooded and calculating, as his last outbreak seemed to prove, and can become as brave and true a soldier as Strahan, I will make amends by treating him as I do Strahan, and will try to feel as friendly towards him.  He shall not have the right to say I’m ‘not a woman but a fanatic.’”

She proved herself a woman by the effort to make excuses for one towards whom she had been severe, by her tendency to relent after she had punished to her heart’s content.

“But,” added the girl aloud, in the solitude of her room, “while I may give him my hand in some degree of kindliness and friendship, if he shows a different spirit, he shall never have my colors, never my loyal and almost sisterly love, until he has shown the courage and manhood of Mr. Lane and Mr. Strahan.  They shall have the first place until a better knight appears.”