The worthlessness of the gift, which before had not concerned her, now made its giving impossible.
While before she had thought with indifference of submitting to a love she did not return, now that she returned it the idea of being happy in it seemed to her guilty and shameless.

Thus to gather the honey of happiness from her own abasement was a further degradation, compared with which she could now almost respect herself.

The consciousness that she had taken pleasure in that kiss made her seem to herself a brazen thing.
Her heart ached with a helpless yearning over him for the disappointment she knew he must now suffer at her hands.

She tried, but in vain, to feel that she might, after all, marry him, might do this crowning violence to her nature, and accept a shameful happiness for his sake.
One morning a bitter thing happened to her.

She had slept unusually well, and her dreams had been sweet and serene, untinged by any shadow of her waking thoughts, as if, indeed, the visions intended for the sleeping brain of some fortunate woman had by mistake strayed into hers.