He had yet to realise that circumstances are as relative in their importance as everything else in this world, and that ofttimes the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most insignificant outward events--personality being all.
He spent the hours of her absence in moving from place to place, fretting in mind.

At one moment, he half determined to bring things to some issue, by disregarding all considerations and urging his love upon her.

Yet this he felt he could not do.

Surely--he asked himself angrily he was not still so much in the thraldom of conventionality as to be affected by his fresh reminder of her position and antecedents?
Perhaps not quite so much prejudice as experience which disturbed him.

He was well acquainted with the characteristics of girls of this class; he knew how all but impossible it is for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.