She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far, uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give it to her silent gnawing heart to feed on.

She thrust out of sight all possible life that might have called her true self into being, and clung to this present shallow duty and shallow reward.
Pitiful and vain so to cling! It is the way of women.

As if any human soul could bury that which might have been, in that which is! The Doctor, peering into her thought with sharp, suspicious eyes, heeded the transient flush of enthusiasm but little.

Even the pleasant cheery talk that pleased her father so was but surface-deep, he knew.
The woman he must conquer for his great end lay beneath, dark and cold.
It was only for that end he cared for her.

Through what cold depths of solitude her soul breathed faintly mattered little.