For a day or two Miriam enjoyed the excitement this produced--the inquiries, the felicitations, the reports of gossip.

She held her head more firmly than ever; she seemed of a sudden to be quite re-established in health.
Another day or two, and she was lying seriously ill--so ill that her doctor summoned aid from Manchester.
What a distance between those memories, even the latest of them, and this room in Villa Sannazaro! Its foreign aspect, its brightness, its comfort, the view from the windows, had from the first worked upon her with subtle influences of which she was unconscious.

By reason of her inexperience of life, it was impossible for Miriam to analyze her own being, and note intelligently the modifications it underwent.
Introspection meant to her nothing but debates held with conscience--a technical conscience, made of religious precepts.

Original reflection, independent of these precepts, was to her very simply a form of sin, a species of temptation for which she had been taught to prepare herself.
With anxiety, she found herself slipping away from that firm ground whence she was won't to judge all within and about her; more and more difficult was it to keep in view that sole criterion in estimating the novel impressions she received.

To review the criterion itself was still beyond her power.