When a woman says 'Oh, that is past,' she means 'It does not exist, and never did exist.' It surprised her that she still thought of him with heartache.

Her quarrel with Mary Bower seemed an encouragement to the love she kept so secret.

She found a thousand excuses for him; she pitied him deeply; she longed to go and speak to him.

Why could she not do so?
Often and often she rehearsed conversations with him, in which she told him how unworthy it was to fall so, and implored him for his own sake to be a man again.

She might have realised such a dialogue--though it would have cost her much--but for the news that he had begun to pay attention to Totty Nancarrow.
Then she knew jealousy.