 the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to
get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through
some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the
mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this
shadowy prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I
should hold her the more sacred, remembering the confidences I had reposed in
her, her knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my
friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, could
I believe that she would love me now?
    I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and
fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been to her,
or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was not now, and she
was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her.
    That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with
unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it was
required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with shame, the
thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I
had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh - which consideration was
at the root of every thought I had concerning her - is all equally true. I made
no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to
her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and
that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed.
    I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing out to me what might
have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us. I had considered
how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their
effects, as those that are accomplished. The very years she spoke of, were
realities now, for my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later
perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert
what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more
self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and
