Yet now through following his natural bent too far, and yielding to the influence of a remorseless villain, he found his own hands stained with blood--the blood of a man who, after all, had been his best friend, and had led him to fortune; and the blood of an innocent girl who had not only been his pecuniary benefactress for a time, but had warmed and lighted his house with her beauty and affection.
Busy men, whose views are all external, are even more apt than others to miss the knowledge of their own minds.

This man, to whom everything was business, had taken for granted he did not actually love Grace Hope.

Why, she was another man's child.

But now he had lost her forever, he found he had mistaken his own feelings.

He looked round his gloomy horizon and realized too late that he did love her; it was not a great and penetrating love like William Hope's; he was incapable of such a sentiment; but what affection he had to bestow, he had given to this sweet creature.