But now that he had found her, a noble woman, matured, ripened by sorrow rather than hardened, yet firm in her determination to die to the world, to deny self, crucify the flesh, and resist the Devil--he felt indeed that she walked among the stars.
Yet he could not bring himself to regard her as unattainable.

It had ever been his firm belief that a man could win any woman upon whom he wholly set his heart--always supposing that no other man had already won her.

And this woman had been his own betrothed, when treachery intervened and sundered them.

Yet that did not now count for much.
He had left a girl; he had come back to find a woman.

That woman had infinitely more to give; but it would be infinitely more difficult to persuade her to give it.
At the close of their interview in her cell, the day before, all hope had left him.