Mingled with a blank feeling of a whole day being lost to him in running about the city on this new and extraordinary class of errand, and of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a slight sense of satisfaction that he had emerged for ever from his antediluvian ignorance on the subject of ladies' jewellery, as well as secured a truly artistic production at last.

During the remainder of that day he scanned the ornaments of every lady he met with the profoundly experienced eye of an appraiser.
Next morning Knight was again crossing St.George's Channel--not returning to London by the Holyhead route as he had originally intended, but towards Bristol--availing himself of Mr.and Mrs.Swancourt's invitation to revisit them on his homeward journey.
We flit forward to Elfride.
Woman's ruling passion--to fascinate and influence those more powerful than she--though operant in Elfride, was decidedly purposeless.

She had wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from the first: how much more than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her to think.

In originally wishing to please the highest class of man she had ever intimately known, there was no disloyalty to Stephen Smith.

She could not--and few women can--realize the possible vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant begetting.
Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of fidelity clung to the last she had received as a wrecked mariner clings to flotsam.