"She must see that it would result only in pain to him." "Still----" said Tommy.
"Oh, but how dense you are!" she said, in surprise.

"Don't you understand that she would stop him, though it were for no better reasons than selfish ones?
Consider her shame if, in thinking it over afterwards, she saw that she might have stopped him sooner! Why," she cried, with a sudden smile, "it is in your book! You say: 'Every maiden carries secretly in her heart an idea of love so pure and sacred that, if by any act she is once false to that conception, her punishment is that she never dares to look at it again.' And this is one of the acts you mean." "I had not thought of it, though," he said humbly.

He was never prouder of Grizel than at that moment.

"If Elspeth's outlook," he went on, "is different----" "It can't be different." "If it is, the fault is mine; yes, though I wrote the passage that you interpret so nobly, Grizel.

Shall I tell you," he said gently, "what I believe is Elspeth's outlook exactly, just now?
She knows that the doctor is attracted by her, and it gives her little thrills of exultation; but that it can be love--she puts that question in such a low voice, as if to prevent herself hearing it.