He thought it best to leave her to herself for a little while; the very sight of him, he argued, would be painful to her, and any meeting with her would be painful to himself.

He did not go out of the house, but spent the whole day in his library among his books, not indeed reading, but pretending to himself that he was very busy.

Being a strong and sensible man he did not waste time in bemoaning his sorrows, but he thought about them long and earnestly.

The more he thought, the more it appeared to him that Mrs.Goddard was the person who deserved pity rather than he himself.

His mind dwelt on the terrors of her position in case her husband should return and claim his wife and daughter when the twelve years were over, and he thought with horror of Nellie's humiliation, if at the age of twenty she should discover that her father during all these years had not been honourably dead and buried, but had been suffering the punishment of a felon in Portland.