m? Perhaps such
evidence would be adduced to her that she could have no choice but to
judge and condemn him. Gilbert Grail had thought him infamous; perhaps
Annabel would hesitate as little. She would have remarked a strangeness
in his manner to her, explicable now. Believing, how she must scorn
him! How those beautiful eyes of hers would speak in one glance of cold
contempt, if ever he passed beneath them! She _might_ take the nobler
part; she _might_ hold it incredible till she had a confession from his
very lips. But were women magnanimous? And Annabel, very clear in
thought, very pure in soul--was she after all so far above her sisters
as to face all hazard of human weakness in defence of an ideal?

Annabel, now in London, would write the news to Mrs. Ormonde. Would it
receive credence from her--his dearest friend? Assuredly not, if she
had known nothing to give the calumny startling support. But there was
that letter he wrote to her about Thyrza; there was her recollection of
the interview in Great Russell Street, when it might be that he had
betrayed himself. She had found him in a state of perturbation which he
could not conceal; it was on the eve of his own departure from
London--of Thyrza's disappearance. Well, she too must form her own
judgment. If she wrote to him and asked plainly for information, he
would know how to reply. Till she wrote, he must keep silence.

So there was the head-roll of his friends. No, he had omitted Annabel's
father. Mr. Newthorpe was a student, and apt to be humorously cynical
in his judgment of men. To him the story would not appear incredible.
Youth, human nature, a passionate temperament; these explain so much to
the unprejudiced mind. Mr. Newthorpe must go with the rest.

For other acquaintances he cared nothing.

So his fate at last had declared itself. Even though the all but
impossible should befall, and Grail should still marry Thyrza, how
could the schemes for common activity survive this shock? Say what he
might, he had no longer even the desire to work personally for the old
aims. How hard to believe that he was the same man who had lectured to
that little band of hearers on English Literature, who had uttered with
such vehemence the 'Thoughts for the Present!' That period of his life
was gone by like smoke; the heart in which such enthusiasms were
nourished had been swept by an all-consuming fire. Henceforth he must
live for himself, the vainest of all lives. To such