He could not, therefore, understand how different must now be her feelings in reference to this marriage with Adrian, from what they had been when she had believed herself to be utterly deserted.

And then he did not comprehend how thoroughly unselfish she had been;--how she had struggled to do her duty to others, let the cost be what it might to herself.

She had plighted herself to Adrian Urmand, not because there had seemed to her to be any brightness in the prospect which such a future promised to her, but because she did verily believe that, circumstanced as she was, it would be better that she should submit herself to her friends.

All this George Voss did not understand.

He had thrown his thunderbolt, and had seen that it had been efficacious.