had destroyed
her.

His offer seemed to her more villainous than his desertion. His
ignorance of her true self, the insolence and contempt that prompted
such a proposal, the view of her--these thoughts lashed her into fury.
She longed for some one to help her against him and treat him as he
deserved to be treated. She felt equal to making any sacrifice, if only
he might be debased and scorned and pointed at as he deserved to be. She
felt that her emotions must be shared by every honourable woman and
decent man. Her spirit hungered for a great revenge.

At first she dreamed of a personal action. She longed to tear him with
her nails, outrage him in people's eyes and make him suffer in his
flesh; but that passed: she knew she could not do it. A man was needed
to extort punishment from Raymond. But no man existed who would
undertake the task. She must then find such a man. She even sought him.
But she did not find him. The search led to bitter discoveries. If women
could forgive her betrayer; if women could say, as presently they said,
that she did not know her luck, men were still more indifferent.

The attitude of the world to her sufferings horrified Sabina. She had
none to love her--none, at least, to show his love by assaulting and
injuring her enemy. Only a certain number even took up the cudgels for
her in speech. Of these Levi Baggs, the hackler, was the strongest. But
his misanthropy embraced her also. He had said harsh things of his new
master; but neither had he spared the victim.

Upon these three great periods, of rage, futile passion, and hate, there
followed a lethargy from which Ernest Churchouse tried in vain to rouse
Sabina. He apprehended worse results from this coma of mind and body
than from the flux of her natural indignation. He spent much time with
her and bade her hope that Raymond might still reconsider his future.

None had yet seen him since his brother's funeral, and his aunt
received no answer to a very strenuous plea. He wrote to her, indeed,
about affairs, and even asked her for advice upon certain matters; but
they affected the past and Daniel rather than the future and himself.
She could not fail to notice the supreme change that power had brought
with it; his very handwriting seemed to have acquired a firmer line;
while his diction certainly showed more strength of purpose. Could power
modify character? It seemed impossible. She supposed, rather, that
character, latent till this sud