She cannot resolve to take the step.

She has become used to luxury and continuous amusement, and she cannot face the return to a duller domesticity.

Finally, however, she dies penitent, and it is the contemplation of her life and death that works a life-long change in the ambitions and aims of the old lover.

He wearies of money-making, and retires to lead a country life, where he may be of some good to his neighbours, and turn to some worthy use the time that may be still allowed him.

The story is told with real pathos and impressive force.
But the picture is spoiled by the tasteless interpolation of a song which the unhappy girl sings to her lover, at the very moment apparently when she has resolved that she can never be his: "My Damon was the first to wake The gentle flame that cannot die; My Damon is the last to take The faithful bosom's softest sigh; The life between is nothing worth, O! cast it from thy thought away; Think of the day that gave it birth, And this its sweet returning day.
"Buried be all that has been done, Or say that nought is done amiss; For who the dangerous path can shun In such bewildering world as this?
But love can every fault forgive, Or with a tender look reprove; And now let nought in memory live, But that we meet, and that we love." The lines are pretty enough, and may be described as a blend of Tom Moore and Rogers.