f had
been the doer. There was another soul in danger of perdition; another
black spot of sin, making earth hideous to her. The village was
disgraced; not in the public eyes, true: but in the eye of heaven, and
in the eyes of that stranger for whom she was beginning to feel an
interest more intense than she ever had done in any human being
before. Her saintliness (for Grace was a saint in the truest sense of
that word) had long since made her free of that "communion of saints"
which consists not in Pharisaic isolation from "the world," not in the
mutual flatteries and congratulations of a self-conceited clique; but
which bears the sins and carries the sorrows of all around: whose
atmosphere is disappointed hopes and plans for good, and the
indignation which hates the sin because it loves the sinner, and
sacred fear and pity for the self-inflicted miseries of those who
might be (so runs the dream, and will run till it becomes a waking
reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such
a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and
heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally
unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too,
as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth
of the pit,--why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a
far narrower imagination than Grace's would have done what Grace's
did--concentrate themselves round the image of that man with all the
love of woman. For, ere long, Grace found that she did love that man,
as a woman loves but once in her life; perhaps in all time to come.
She found that her heart throbbed, her cheek flushed, when his name
was mentioned; that she watched, almost unawares to herself, for his
passing; and she was not ashamed at the discovery. It was a sort of
melancholy comfort to her that there was a great gulf fixed between
them. His station, his acquirements, his great connections and friends
in London (for all Tom's matters were the gossip of the town, as,
indeed, he took care that they should be), made it impossible that he
should ever think of her; and therefore she held herself excused
for thinking of him, without any fear of that "self-seeking," and
"inordinate affection," and "unsanctified passions," which her
religious books had taught her to dread. Besides, he was not "a
Christian." That five minutes on the shore had told her that; and even
if her station had been the sa