f Barbara, is the sense of my own degradation.
There must have been something in my conduct to justify his taking me so
confidently for the bad, light woman he did. One does not get such a
character for nothing. I have always heard that, when such things happen
to people, they have invariably brought them on themselves. In
incoherent misery, I run over in my head, as well as the confusion of it
will let me, our past meetings and dialogues. In almost all, to my
distorted view, there now seems to have been an unseemly levity. Things
I have said to him; easy, familiar jokes that I have had with him; not
that _he_ ever had much sense of a jest--(even at this moment I think
this incidentally)--course through my mind.

Our many _tete-a-tetes_ to which, at the time, I attached less than no
importance: through many of which I unfeignedly, irresistibly _gaped_;
our meetings in the park--accidental, as I thought--our dawdling
saunters through the meadows, as often as not at twilight; all, _all_
recur to me, and, recurring, make my face burn with a hot and stabbing
shame.

And _Roger_! This is the way in which I have kept things straight for
him! This is the way in which I have rewarded his boundless trust! he,
whose only fear was lest I should be dull! lest I should not amuse
myself! Well, I have amused myself to some purpose now. I have made
myself _common talk for the neighborhood_! _He_ said so. I have brought
discredit on Roger's honored name! Not even the consciousness of the
utter cleanness of my heart is of the least avail to console me. What
matter how clean the heart is, if the conduct be light? None but God can
see the former; the latter lies open to every carelessly spiteful,
surface-judging eye. And Barbara! Goaded by the thought of her, I rise
up quickly, and walk hastily along the road, till I reach a gate into
the park. Arrived there, and now free from all fear of interruption from
passers-by, I again sit down on an old dry log that lies beneath a great
oak, and again cover my face with my hands.

What care I for the growing dark? the darker the better! Ah! if it were
dark enough to hide me from myself! How shall I break it to her--I, who,
confident in my superior discernment, have always scouted her misgivings
and turned into derision her doubts? If I thought that she would rave
and storm, and that her grief would vent itself in _anger_, it would not
be of half so much consequence. But I know her better. The eve