Now she had done an awful thing.

The falling from the pedestal of a friend is nothing to hurling oneself from one's height of self-esteem and that she had done.

She stood, as it were, over the horrible body of her once beautiful and adored self.

She was not actually remorseful and that made it all the worse.

She simply could not evade the dreadful glare of light upon her own imperfections; she who had always thought of herself as perfect, but the glare of knowledge came mostly from her appreciation of the attitude of her friends and lovers toward what she had done.