fallen to a ruin, in which she vainly
endeavored to find some clew or motive of the past. She felt remanded
to the conditions of the girlhood that she fancied she had altogether
outlived; she turned her face upon her pillow in a grief of bewildered
aspiration and broken pride, and shed tears scarcely predicable of a
doctor of medicine.

But there is no lapse or aberration of character which can be half so
surprising to others as it is to one's self. She had resented Libby's
treating her upon a theory, but she treated herself upon a theory, and
we all treat ourselves upon a theory. We proceed each of us upon the
theory that he is very brave, or generous, or gentle, or liberal, or
truthful, or loyal, or just. We may have the defects of our virtues, but
nothing is more certain than that we have our virtues, till there comes
a fatal juncture, not at all like the juncture in which we had often
imagined ourselves triumphing against temptation. It passes, and the
hero finds, to his dismay and horror, that he has run away; the generous
man has been niggard; the gentleman has behaved like a ruffian, and the
liberal like a bigot; the champion of truth has foolishly and vainly
lied; the steadfast friend has betrayed his neighbor, the just person
has oppressed him. This is the fruitful moment, apparently so sterile,
in which character may spring and flower anew; but the mood of abject
humility in which the theorist of his own character is plunged and
struggles for his lost self-respect is full of deceit for others. It
cannot last: it may end in disowning and retrieving the error, or it may
end in justifying it, and building it into the reconstructed character,
as something upon the whole unexpectedly fine; but it must end, for
after all it is only a mood. In such a mood, in the anguish of her
disappointment at herself, a woman clings to whatever support offers,
and it is at his own risk that the man who chances to be this support
accepts the weight with which she casts herself upon him as the measure
of her dependence, though he may make himself necessary to her, if he
has the grace or strength to do it.

Without being able to understand fully the causes of the dejection
in which this girl seemed to appeal to him, Mulbridge might well
have believed himself the man to turn it in his favor. If he did not
sympathize with her distress, or even clearly divine it, still his bold
generalizations, he found, always had their effect with w