He was face to face with a miserable passage where, if it were possible, he desired to carry himself with dignity.

As to the main fact, he never swerved or faltered; he had come so heart-sick and so cruelly humiliated from his talk with Gotthold, that he embraced the notion of imprisonment with something bordering on relief.

Here was, at least, a step which he thought blameless; here was a way out of his troubles.

He sat down to write to Seraphina; and his anger blazed.

The tale of his forbearances mounted, in his eyes, to something monstrous; still more monstrous, the coldness, egoism, and cruelty that had required and thus requited them.