How, accompanied and led by a spirit which he felt to be stronger and more commanding than his own,--how preserve the whiteness of his soul, the uprightness of his honour?
Already he felt himself debased.

But in the still trial of domestic intercourse, with the daily, hourly dripping on the stone, in the many struggles between truth and falsehood, guile and candour, which men--and, above all, ambitious men--must wage, what darker angel would whisper him in his monitor?
Still, he was bound,--bound with an iron band; he writhed, but dreamed not of escape.
The day after that of Fielden's conference with his wife, an unexpected visitor came to the house.

Olivier Dalibard called.

He had not seen Lucretia since she had left Laughton, nor had any correspondence passed between them.

He came at dusk, just after Mainwaring's daily visit was over, and Lucretia was still in the parlour, which she had appropriated to herself.