So she argued, and the more persistently because she felt that the argument was thin.

He could be kind.

He had been thoughtful for her during the past week in the small attentions which appeal so much to women.

Because he saw that she loved flowers, he had engaged a new gardener for their stay; and he had shown, in one particular instance, a quite surprising thoughtfulness for a class of unhappy men with whom he could have had no concern, the convicts in Portland prison.

That instance remained for a long time vividly in her mind, and at a later time she spoke of it with consequences of a far-reaching kind.