Sophie could never justify herself in the eyes of her husband, or in her own eyes, because this man did not love her.

Even as he stood before her there, declaring himself to her as wilfully wicked in all that he had said and done, she still longed passionately for the thing that was denied her: not her lost truth back, but the love that would have compensated for her suffering, and in some poor sense have justified her in years to come.

She did not put it into words, but the thought was bluntly in her mind.

She looked at him, and her eyes filled with tears, which dropped down her cheek to the ground.
He was about to answer her question, when, all at once, her honest eyes looked into his mournfully, and she said with an incredible pathos and simplicity: "I don't know how I am going to live on with Magon.

I suppose I'll have to keep pretending till I die!" The bell in the church was ringing for vespers.