This liaison had been alternately his pride and his shame for many months.

But now it was becoming something more--which it had been all the time, only he had not noticed it till lately--a fetter, a clog, something irksome, to be cast off and pushed out of sight.

Decidedly the moment for the good resolution had arrived.
"I will break it off," he said again.

"Thank Heaven, not a soul has ever guessed it." How could any one have guessed it?
He remembered the day when he had first met her a year ago, and had looked upon her as merely a pretty woman.

He remembered other days, and the gradual building up between them of a fairy palace.