He had seen her--recognized her.
"May I introduce Mr.Tristram ?" said Sybell to Rachel.
"We have met before," said Rachel, gently, as he bowed without looking at her, and she put out her hand.
He was obliged to touch it, obliged to meet for one moment the clear, calm eyes that had once held boundless love for him, boundless trust in him; that had, as he well knew, wept themselves half blind for him.
Mr.Tristram was one of the many who judge their actions in the light of after-circumstances, and who towards middle-age discover that the world is a treacherous world.

He had not been "in a position to marry" when he had fallen in love with Rachel.

But he had been as much in love with her as was consistent with a permanent prudential passion for himself and his future--that future which the true artist must ever preserve untrammelled.

"High hopes faint on a warm hearthstone," etc.

He had felt keenly breaking with Rachel.