She atoned for want of devotion to God, by devotion to man.
She had a woman's natural tendency towards asceticism, self-extinction, self-abnegation.

All through life she had made painful efforts to understand and follow out her duty.

Ratcliffe knew her weak point when he attacked her from this side.

Like all great orators and advocates, he was an actor; the more effective because of a certain dignified air that forbade familiarity.
He had appealed to her sympathy, her sense of right and of duty, to her courage, her loyalty, her whole higher nature; and while he made this appeal he felt more than half convinced that he was all he pretended to be, and that he really had a right to her devotion.

What wonder that she in her turn was more than half inclined to admit that right.