e.

The pangs of an accusing conscience completed her wretchedness at this
time. The conventional proprieties are a law written on the hearts of
refined, delicately nurtured girls; and though, in the desperation of
unreciprocated and jealous love, she had dared to violate them, not the
less did they now thoroughly revenge themselves. If her revolt against
custom had resulted happily, it is not indeed likely that she would ever
have reproached herself very seriously; but now that it had issued
in failure, her self-confidence was gone and her conscience easily
convicted her of sin. The outraged Proprieties, with awful spectacles
and minatory, reproachful gestures, crowded nightly around her bed,
the Titanic shade of Mrs. Grundy looming above her satellite shams and
freezing her blood with a Gorgon gaze. The feeling that she had deserved
all that was to come upon her deprived her of moral support.

Arthur had never showed that he thought cheaply of her, but in his heart
of hearts how could he help doing so? Compared with the other
girls, serene and unapproachable in their virgin pride, must she not
necessarily seem bold, coarse, and common? That he took care never to
let her see it only proved his kindness of heart. Her sense of this
kindness was more and more touched with abjectness.

The pity of it was that she had come to love him so much more since she
had known him so well. It scarcely seemed to her now that she could have
truly cared for him at all in the old days, and she wondered, as
she looked back, that the shallow emotion she then experienced had
emboldened her to do what she had done. Ah, why had she done it? Why had
she not let him go his way? She might have suffered then, but not such
heart-breaking misery as was now in store for her.

Some weeks passed with no marked change in their relations, except that
a new and marked constraint which had come over Arthur's manner towards
her was additional evidence that the end was at hand. Would he think
it better to say nothing, but merely come to see her less and less
frequently and so desert her, without an explanation, which, after all,
was needless? Or would he tell her how the matter stood and say good-by?
She thought he would take the latter course, seeing that they had always
been so frank with each other. She tried to prepare herself for what she
knew was coming, and to get ready to bear it. The only result was that
she grew sick with apprehension whenever