On her part she had been deeply hurt; wounded beyond repair.

He had failed her from every vital stand-point, he had not fulfilled one hope she had ever had of him.

But she laid the blame not at his door; she rather shrank with inner bitterness from the cynical cruelty of nature, which, in deforming the body, with a merciless cruelty had deformed a noble mind.

These things were between her and her inmost soul.
To Louis she was ever the same, affectionate, gentle, and unselfish; but her stronger soul ruled him without his knowledge, commanded his perturbed spirit into the abstracted quiet and bitter silence wherein he lived, and which she sought to cheer by a thousand happy devices.

She did not let him think that she was giving up anything for him; no word or act of hers could have suggested to him the sacrifices she had made.