Why must this come to him now too late to do him any good, when he had needed it so much before?
I felt momentarily enraged at Polly.

It seemed somehow as if the trouble might have been avoided had she been more straightforward.

Then at the memory of her pale face and pleading eyes I relented.

However thoughtless she had been before, she was changed now; this tragedy had somehow made a woman of her over night.

When Radnor came at last to claim her, they would each, perhaps, be worthier of the other.
I returned to the empty house that night and sat down to look the facts squarely in the face.