The sense of shame never left her; for there is a pride that thrives amidst poverty and degradation, and of such pride Diana Paget possessed no small share.

She writhed under the consciousness that she was the daughter of a man who had forfeited all right to the esteem of his fellowmen.

She valued the good opinion of others, and would fain have been beloved and admired, trusted and respected; for she was ambitious: and the though that she might one day do something which should lift her above the vulgar level was the day-dream that had consoled her in many an hour of humiliation and discomfort.

Diana Paget felt the Captain's shame as keenly as her mother had felt it; but the remorse which had agonised gentle Mary Anne, the tender compassion for others which had wrung that fond and faithful heart, had no place in the breast of the Captain's daughter.
Diana felt so much compassion for herself, that she had none left to bestow upon other people.

Her father's victims might be miserable, but was not she infinitely more wretched?
The landlady who found her apartments suddenly tenantless and her rent unpaid might complain of the hardness of her fortune; but was it not harder for Diana, with the sensitive feelings and keen pride of the Pagets, to endure all the degradation involved in the stealthy carrying away of luggage and a secret departure under cover of night?
At first Miss Paget had been inclined to feel aggrieved by the presence of the young man whom she had seen writing letters in the gloomy dusk of the November afternoon; but in due time she came to accept him as a companion, and to feel that her joyless life would have been drearier without him.