She thought of her father--his sharp passions, his frequent forgiveness, or rather his forgetfulness that he had even been injured.

All Sylvia's persistent or enduring qualities were derived from her mother, her impulses from her father.

It was her dead father whose example filled her mind this evening in the soft and tender twilight.

She did not say to herself that she would go and tell Simpson that she forgave him; but she thought that if Philip asked her again that she should do so.
But when she saw Philip again he told her that Simpson was dead; and passed on from what he had reason to think would be an unpleasant subject to her.

Thus he never learnt how her conduct might have been more gentle and relenting than her words--words which came up into his memory at a future time, with full measure of miserable significance.
In general, Sylvia was gentle and good enough; but Philip wanted her to be shy and tender with him, and this she was not.