Nor could he trust his judgment of the face: perhaps it shone only by contrast with so much ugliness on either side of it; perhaps, in the starved condition of his senses, he was ready to find perfection in any female countenance not frankly repulsive.
Yet, no; it was a beautiful face.

Beautiful, at all events, in the sense of being deeply interesting, in the strength of its appeal to his emotions.

Another man might pass it slightingly; to him it spoke as no other face had ever spoken.

It awakened in him a consciousness of profound sympathy.
While he still sat at table his landlady came in.

She was a worthy woman of her class, not given to vulgar gossip.