Fay had shrunk from her persistently afterwards, that was all.
Strong and ardent souls often wonder why an appeal which they know, if made to themselves, would clinch them forever into a regenerating repentance is entirely powerless with a different class of mind.

But although an irresistible truth spoken in love will renovate our being, and will fail absolutely to reach the mind of another, nevertheless the weaker, vainer nature will sometimes pick out of the uncomfortable appeal, to which it turns its deaf ear, a few phrases less distressing to its _amour propre_ than the rest.

To these it will listen.

Fay had retained in her mind Magdalen's vivid description of the love her husband and Michael had borne her.

She had often dwelt upon the remembrance that she had been greatly loved.