Their first courtship, pursued under intolerable restrictions of time and place, had been a rather uninspired affair, and its end a foregone conclusion.

He had been afraid of himself, afraid sometimes of her.

For he had not brought her the spontaneous, unalarmed, unspoiled spirit of his youth.
He had come to her with a stain on his imagination and a wound in his memory.

And she was holy to him.

He had held himself in, lest a touch, a word, a gesture should recall some insufferable association.
Marriage had delivered him from the tyranny of reminiscence.