What in him was confidence and self-reliance had been in Ida little else than vanity and pride, and these, circumstances had enabled him to wound unto death. He had, from the first, calmly and philosophically recognized the fact that he must break down, in part, the Chinese wall of her self-approval, before any elevating ideas and ennobling impulses could enter, and as much through unforeseen events as by his effort, this had been done to a degree that threatened results that appalled him. He had been taught thoroughly that faulty and ignorant as she undoubtedly was, she was by no means shallow or weak. To his mind the depth of her despondency was the measure of her power to realize her imperfection, for he now supposed her depression was caused immediately by the fact that she had been so harshly misjudged, but in the main because of her resemblance to the flower he had tossed away and which he now remembered, with deep satisfaction, was in his note-book, ready to aid in the reassuring and encouraging work upon which he was eager to enter. He did not dream that by tactics the reverse of those pursued by her numerous admirers he had won her heart, and that the apparent hopelessness of her passion had outweighed all other burdens. Her kindest sentiment towards him, he believed, was the cold respect, mingled with fear and dislike, in which a sever but honest critic is sometimes held; and as he recalled his course towards her he now felt that she had little reason for even this degree of regard. He had awakened her sleeping mind not to an atmosphere of kindness and sympathy like that in which the beauty in the fabled castle had revived, but to a biting frost of harsh criticism and unjust suspicion. That there seemed, at the time, good reason for these on his part did not make it any easier for her to bear them; and in the fact that he had so misunderstood and wronged her, his confidence in his own sagacity received the severest shock it had ever experienced. He felt that he could never go forward in life with his old assured tread and manner.