had declared the union between the almost designated
head of the Cantor family and a young person of no name, of worse than
no birth, impossible: 'absolutely and totally impossible,' he, had said,
in his impressive fashion, speaking from his knowledge of the family,
and an acquaintance with Dudley. She must necessarily have learnt why
Dudley Sowerby withdrew. No parents of an attractive daughter should
allow her to remain unaware of her actual position in the world. It is
criminal, a reduplication of the criminality! Yet she had not spoken as
one astonished. She was mysterious. Women are so: young women most
of all. It is undecided still whether they do of themselves conceive
principles, or should submit to an imposition of the same upon them in
terrorem. Mysterious truly, but most attractive! As Lady Bountiful of a
district, she would have in her maturity the majestic stature to suit
a dispensation of earthly good things. And, strangely, here she was, at
this moment, rivalling to excelling all others of her sex (he verified
it in the crowd of female faces passing), when they, if they but knew
the facts, would visit her very appearance beside them on a common
footing as an intrusion and a scandal. To us who know, such matters are
indeed wonderful!

Moved by reflective compassion, Mr. Barmby resumed the wooer's note,
some few steps after he had responded to the salutation of Dartrey
Fenellan and Colonel Sudley. She did not speak. She turned her forehead
to him; and the absence of the world from her eyes chilled his tongue.

He declined the pleasure of the lunch with the Duvidney ladies. He
desired to be alone, to question himself fasting, to sound the deed he
had done; for he had struck on a suspicion of selfishness in it: and
though Love must needs be an egoism, Love is no warrant for the doing
of a hurt to the creature beloved. Thoughts upon Skepsey and the tale
of his Matilda Pridden's labours in poor neighbourhoods, to which he had
been inattentive during the journey down to the sea, invaded him; they
were persistent. He was a worthy man, having within him the
spiritual impulse curiously ready to take the place where a material
disappointment left vacancy. The vulgar sort embrace the devil at that
stage. Before the day had sunk, Mr. Barmby's lowest wish was, to be a
light, as the instrument of his Church in her ministrations amid the
haunts of sin and slime, to such plain souls as Daniel Skepsey and
Matilda Pridden.