CHAPTER XXIII.
A STROLL IN A BYPATH Ross had intended to dine at the club; but Mrs.Hastings's trap was hardly clear of the grounds when he, to be free to think uninterruptedly, set out through the woods for Point Helen.
Even had he had interests more absorbing than pastimes, display, and money-making by the "brace" game of "high finance" with its small risks of losing and smaller risks of being caught, even if he had been married to a less positive and incessant irritant than Theresa was to him, he would still not have forgotten Adelaide.

Forgetfulness comes with the finished episode, never with the unfinished.

In the circumstances, there could be but one effect from seeing her again.

His regrets blazed up into fierce remorse, became the reckless raging of a passion to which obstacles and difficulties are as fuel to fire.
Theresa, once the matter of husband-getting was safely settled, had no restraint of prudence upon her self-complacence.

She "let herself go" completely, with results upon her character, her mind, and her personal appearance that were depressing enough to the casual beholder, but appalling to those who were in her intimacy of the home.