And he never did.
He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly, and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife.

No doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged bond.

It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month by month.

Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely together a year or two longer.

The change could have been in but one direction.