Sophia felt that it had been futile, and she did not overlook the rebuff to herself.

With this personal affront rankling, and indignation that Eliza should still feel so resentful after all that had been urged on behalf of Bates, she made her way into the street.
She was feeling that life was a weary thing when she chanced, near the end of the village, to look back, and saw Alec Trenholme some way behind, but coming in the same direction.

Having her report to give, she waited and brought him to her side.
Sophia told all that had just passed, speaking with a restful feeling of confidence in him.

She had never felt just this confidence in a man before; it sprang up from somewhere, she knew not where; probably from the union of her sense of failure and his strength.

She even told him the analogy she had drawn between Eliza's conduct and the mistake of her own life, alluding only to what all her little public knew of her deeds; but it seemed to him that she was telling what was sacred to her self-knowledge.