I need you to draw me back, if my life ever amounts to anything." Carrie looked at him with the tenderness which virtue ever feels in its hope of reclaiming vice.

How could such a man need reclaiming?
His errors, what were they, that she could correct?
Small they must be, where all was so fine.

At worst, they were gilded affairs, and with what leniency are gilded errors viewed.

He put himself in such a lonely light that she was deeply moved.
"Is it that way ?" she mused.
He slipped his arm about her waist, and she could not find the heart to draw away.

With his free hand he seized upon her fingers.