Since he saw Rebecca, he had, indeed, had an almost momentary glimpse of a home where a dashing woman, moving silently and airily, guarded his meditations from the external plagues.
Such a woman was created to comfort, cheer and encourage if he flagged.
But the love she inspired was ideal, perceived hazily during the hours when he was out of health, and divined rather than watched her tender ministrations.
The courtships are long when love is based on respect.

She gave repose to the soul, not excitement to the spirit.

He saw that she admired him for his courage in daring so much--more than he had fully realized--for the despised and trampled-upon, and she pitied one before whom yawned the dreadful prison which rarely lets out the political prisoner with enough life in his wrecked frame to be worth living out.

But he did not see that she was truth and that he should follow her.

As the sailors drive the ship toward the false beacon, near them and garish and flaring, so he thought the erratic orb brighter than the serene fixed star.
He felt ungrateful.