y she should not have equalled or surpassed, the ecstasies of St.
Theresa, or of St. Hildegardis, or any other sweet dreamer of sweet
dreams; have founded a new order of charity, have enriched the clergy
of a whole province, and have died in seven years, maddened by
alternate paroxysms of self-conceit and revulsions of self-abasement.
Her own preachers and class-leaders, indeed (so do extremes meet),
would not have been sorry to make use of her in somewhat the same
manner, however feebly and coarsely: but her innate self-respect and
modesty had preserved her from the snares of such clumsy poachers; and
more than one good-looking young preacher had fled desperately from a
station where, instead of making a tool of Grace Harvey, he could only
madden his own foolish heart with love for her.

So Grace had reigned upon her pretty little throne of not unbearable
sorrows, till a real and bitter woe came; one which could not be
hugged and cherished, like the rest; one which she tried to fling from
her, angrily, scornfully, and found to her horror, that, instead of
her possessing it, it possessed her, and coiled itself round her
heart, and would not be flung away. She--she, of all beings, to be
suspected as a thief, and by the very man whose life she had saved!
She was willing enough to confess herself--and confessed herself night
and morning--a miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean
birds, deceitful, and desperately wicked--except in that. The
conscious innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even
when she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed
herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her little
chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang up and
paced again: but she went into no trance--she dare not. The grief was
too great; she felt that, if she once gave way enough to lose her
self-possession, she should go mad. And the first, and perhaps not the
least good effect of that fiery trial was, that it compelled her to
a stern self-restraint, to which her will, weakened by mental
luxuriousness, had been long a stranger.

But a fiery trial it was. The first wild (and yet not unnatural)
fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day by
day, by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of him as her
husband: only as a friendless stranger to be helped and comforted. And
that he was worthy of help; that some great future was in store
for him;