If she were changing, so was he.

In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it.

In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter.

What was he--a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness--that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire?
So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart.

Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth.
And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth.