He stared about the library in a vacant way, as though he had never seen the place before.

The realisation of his own calm and luxurious life seemed unnatural, and his thoughts went back to the poor weeping woman he had just left.

She, too, had enjoyed all this, and more also.

She had probably been richer than he.

And now she was living on five hundred a year in one of his own cottages, hiding her shame in desolate Billingsfield, the shame of her husband, the forger.
It was such a hopeless position, the squire thought.