The idea was one that might have appealed to Susy's theatrical imagination.

He recalled Mrs.McClosky's sneer at his own pretensions and her vague threats of a rival of more lineal descent.

The possible infidelity of Susy to himself touched him lightly when the first surprise was over; indeed, it scarcely could be called infidelity, if she knew and believed Mary Rogers's discovery; and the conviction that he and she had really never loved each other now enabled him, as he believed, to look at her conduct dispassionately.

Yet it was her treachery to Mrs.Peyton and not to himself that impressed him most, and perhaps made him equally unjust, through his affections.
He extinguished the candles, partly from some vague precautions he could not explain, and partly to think over his fears in the abstraction and obscurity of the semi-darkness.

The higher windows suffused a faint light on the ceiling, and, assisted by the dark lantern-like glow cast on the opposite wall by the tunnel of the embrasured window, the familiar outlines of the room and its furniture came back to him.
Somewhat in this fashion also, in the obscurity and quiet, came back to him the events he had overlooked and forgotten.