She was without religious teaching--quite without that higher moral teaching which is independent of creed and conformity, which is only learnt at a good mother's knee.

Catrina had not had a good mother.

She had had the countess--a weak-minded, self-indulgent, French-novel-reading woman.
Heaven protect our children from such mothers! In the solitude of her life Catrina Lanovitch had conceived a great love--a passion such as a few only are capable of attaining, be it for weal or woe.

She had seen this love ignored--walked under foot by its object with a grave deliberation which took her breath away when she thought of it.

It was all in all to her; to him it was nothing.