He had asked himself whether
her faith in Roderick had not faltered, and that demand of hers which
had brought about his own departure for Switzerland had seemed almost
equivalent to a confession that she needed his help to believe. Rowland
was essentially a modest man, and he did not risk the supposition that
Miss Garland had contrasted him with Roderick to his own advantage; but
he had a certain consciousness of duty resolutely done which allowed
itself to fancy, at moments, that it might be not illogically rewarded
by the bestowal of such stray grains of enthusiasm as had crumbled away
from her estimate of his companion. If some day she had declared, in a
sudden burst of passion, that she was outwearied and sickened, and that
she gave up her recreant lover, Rowland's expectation would have gone
half-way to meet her. And certainly if her passion had taken this course
no generous critic would utterly condemn her. She had been neglected,
ignored, forsaken, treated with a contempt which no girl of a fine
temper could endure. There were girls, indeed, whose fineness, like that
of Burd Helen in the ballad, lay in clinging to the man of their love
through thick and thin, and in bowing their head to all hard usage.
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