and ended with mutual liking
between the male fellow-travellers.
    Meanwhile Gwendolen sat by like one who had visited the spirit-world and was
full to the lips of an unutterable experience that threw a strange unreality
over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the world's business; and Mrs.
Davilow was chiefly occupied in imagining what her daughter was feeling, and in
wondering what was signified by her hinted doubt whether she would accept her
husband's bequest. Gwendolen in fact had before her the unscaled wall of an
immediate purpose shutting off every other resolution. How to scale the wall?
She wanted again to see and consult Deronda, that she might secure herself
against any act he would disapprove. Would her remorse have maintained its power
within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy, if it had not been for
that outer conscience which was made for her by Deronda? It is hard to say how
much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose
opinion is the breathing-medium of all our joy - who brings to us with close
pressure and immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal
which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. In
this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and his opinion which has
pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our virtue in the making. That
mission of Deronda to Gwendolen had begun with what she had felt to be his
judgment of her at the gaming-table. He might easily have spoiled it: - much of
our lives is spent in marring our own influence and turning others' belief in us
into a widely concluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while
it is really disappointment in you or me. Deronda had not spoiled his mission.
    But Gwendolen had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she wanted to
write, and her only way of reaching him was through Sir Hugo. She was not in the
least blind to the construction that all witnesses might put on her giving signs
of dependence on Deronda, and her seeking him more than he sought her:
Grandcourt's rebukes had sufficiently enlightened her pride. But the force, the
tenacity of her nature had thrown itself into that dependence, and she would no
more let go her hold on Deronda's help, or deny herself the interview her soul
needed, because of witnesses, than if she had been in prison in danger of being
condemned to death. When she was in Park Lane and knew that the baronet would be