Perhaps his object was to mystify her imagination.
She did not understand him, but I fear that she admired the kind of courage which he professed.

And he had not only professed it: in that matter of the past election he had certainly practised it.
In talking of beauty to his sister he had spoken of himself as being ugly.

He would not generally have been called ugly by women, had not one side of his face been dreadfully scarred by a cicatrice, which in healing, had left a dark indented line down from his left eye to his lower jaw.

That black ravine running through his cheek was certainly ugly.

On some occasions, when he was angry or disappointed, it was very hideous; for he would so contort his face that the scar would, as it were, stretch itself out, revealing all its horrors, and his countenance would become all scar.