There came home to him at that moment with a force indescribable the
shamelessness of the act he committed four years ago. He had thought to
come back to miserable humiliation. For four years he had refused to do
his duty as a man towards an innocent woman,--a woman, though in part a
savage,--now transformed into a gentle, noble creature of delight and
goodness. How had he deserved it? He had sown the storm, it was but
just that he should reap the whirlwind; he had scattered thistles,
could he expect to gather grapes? He knew that the sympathy of all his
father's house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged. He
was glad it was so. Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry a
thing that he, a man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who had
given him birth, as a kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set him
aside, and should use for that purpose a helpless, confiding girl. To
revenge one's self for wrong to one's self is but a common passion, which
has little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman,
--and, before all, woman,--has some touch of nobility, is redeemed by
loyalty.
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