" Mary cherished a certain warm kindliness for the
first woman who had befriended her in any way, but beyond this
there was no finer feeling.
Nevertheless, it is not quite accurate to say that Mary Turner
had had no intimacy in which her heart might have been seriously
engaged. In one instance, of recent happening, she had been much
in association with a young man who was of excellent standing in
the world, who was of good birth, good education, of delightful
manners, and, too, wholesome and agreeable beyond the most of his
class. This was Dick Gilder, and, since her companionship with
him, Mary had undergone a revulsion greater than ever before
against the fate thrust on her, which now at last she had chosen
to welcome and nourish by acquiescence as best she might.
Of course, she could not waste tenderness on this man, for she
had deliberately set out to make him the instrument of her
vengeance against his father. For that very reason, she suffered
much from a conscience newly clamorous. Never for an instant did
she hesitate in her long-cherished plan of revenge against the
one who had brought ruin on her life, yet, through all her
satisfaction before the prospect of final victory after continued
delay, there ran the secret, inescapable sorrow over the fact
that she must employ this means to attain her end.
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