Out of it I began to find excuses for her every act.

In the doing so I knew now, though perhaps I did not at the time the process was going on, that my view in its true inwardness was of her as a living woman--the woman I loved.
In the forming of our ideas there are different methods of work, as though the analogy with material life holds good.

In the building of a house, for instance, there are many persons employed; men of different trades and occupations--architect, builder, masons, carpenters, plumbers, and a host of others--and all these with the officials of each guild or trade.

So in the world of thought and feelings: knowledge and understanding come through various agents, each competent to its task.
How far pity reacted with love I knew not; I only knew that whatever her state might be, were she living or dead, I could find in my heart no blame for the Lady of the Shroud.

It could not be that she was dead in the real conventional way; for, after all, the Dead do not walk the earth in corporal substance, even if there be spirits which take the corporal form.