The effect of her original renunciation was still strong within her, and Charles's discovery of her and her promise to him had not really altered her attitude.

His finding her, and their subsequent conversation in the room below, bore an air of the strangest unreality to her, as if she had been merely an actor in a stirring scene which did not actually affect her.

Some subtle inward voice told her that these things did not matter to her.
It was part of a feeling which she had always within her--the sense of living under the shadow of some dark destiny which would not be mitigated or withheld.

It was a strange point of view for one so young, but it had been hers ever since she remembered anything.

The tragedy and the shame which had come into her life recently had found her, as it were, waiting.
She regarded them merely as the partial fulfilment of the unescapable thing which had been prepared for her before she was born, and had dogged her lonely footsteps since childhood.