But to do that would be to break with her for ever, and the voice that urged her innocence would not let him incur such risk.

The loss of his possessions was a calamity so great that as yet he could not realise its possibility; the loss of his wife impressed his imagination more immediately, and was in this moment the more active fear.
He was in the strange position of a man who finds all at once that he _dare_ not believe that which he has been trying his best to believe.

If Adela were guilty of plotting with Eldon, it meant that he himself was the object of her utter hatred, a hideous thought to entertain.

It threw him back upon her innocence.

Egoism had to do the work of the finer moral perceptions.
'Isn't it rather strange,' he said, not this time sneeringly, but seeking for support against his intolerable suspicions, 'that you never moved those buffets before ?' 'I never had need of them.' 'And that hole has never been cleaned out ?' 'Never; clearly never.' She had risen to her feet, impelled by a glimmering of the thought in which he examined her.