When he caught her in one of her unresisting moments and was able to hold her in his arms and kiss her he seemed to be beside himself with the wonder of her.

At such moments, if he had any softness or gentleness in him, they expressed themselves in his sooner or later letting her go, when apparently she was about to faint.

So it must have become fascinatingly fixed in Colter's mind that at times Ellen repulsed him with scorn and at others could not resist him.
Ellen had escaped two crises in her relation with this man, and as a morbid doubt, like a poisonous fungus, began to strangle her mind, she instinctively divined that there was an approaching and final crisis.
No uplift of her spirit came this time--no intimations--no whisperings.
How horrible it all was! To long to be good and noble--to realize that she was neither--to sink lower day by day! Must she decay there like one of these rotting logs?
Worst of all, then, was the insinuating and ever-growing hopelessness.

What was the use?
What did it matter?
Who would ever think of Ellen Jorth?
"O God!" she whispered in her distraction, "is there nothing left--nothing at all ?" A period of several days of less torment to Ellen followed.

Her uncle apparently took a turn for the better and Colter let her alone.