The poor girl was miserably uncertain how to act.

She foresaw that home would be less than ever a home to her after this accumulation of troubles, and indeed she had made up her mind to leave it, but whether as a wife or as an independent woman she could not decide.

"On her own responsibility"-- yes, that was the one thing certain.

And what experience had she whereon to form a judgment?
It might be that her mother's arraignment of Glazzard was grounded in truth, but how could she determine one way or the other?
On the whole, she liked him better than when she promised to marry him--yes, she liked him better; she did rot shrink from the thought of wedlock with him.

He was a highly educated and clever man; he offered her a prospect of fuller life than she had yet imagined; perhaps it was a choice between him and the ordinary husband such as fell to Polterham girls.