Sometimes they gain it, lay their cold hand on it, analyse it, foresee that it may become an incubus, and decide that there is nothing to be got out of it after all.
They seem inhuman because they are not human--as yet.

They seem variable, treacherous, because a child's moral sense guiding a man's body and brain must so seem.

They are not sane--as yet.
And all the while the little cell in the brain sleeps, and their truth and beauty and tenderness may not come forth--as yet.
We who love them know that, and that our strained faithfulness to them now may seem almost want of faith, our pained tenderness now shew like half-heartedness on the day when that little cell in the brain wakes.
Michael knew this without knowing that he knew it.

His mind arrived unconsciously at mental conclusions by physical means.

But in the days that followed, while his mind remained weak and wandering, he was supported by the illusion--was it an illusion--that it was Fay really who was in prison, not himself, and that he was allowed to take her place in her cell because she would suffer too much, poor little thing, unless he helped her through.
He became tranquil, happy, serene.