When suddenly Durant’s news came into his life like a thunderbolt, breaking the stagnation of the unwholesome air. This woman who belonged to him was, like himself, alone in the world. The humble coterie which she had preferred to him was broken up. All that she had loved and clung to had gone from her. Perhaps she too might have felt, even before this, the dreariness of that existence deprived of its closest tie, to which she had condemned him; but at least she must feel it now. Everything had gone from her, the shelter of her father’s house, the natural protection and moral support which perhaps had kept her in her error; but which must have failed her now along with everything else. The first feeling in Arthur’s mind was a keen pity for Nancy. She had done him grievous wrong, she had wasted all their mutual chances of happiness; but she was young, inexperienced, foolish, a child playing with the most dangerous elements, not knowing any better, and now the time had come when she must bear the penalty too. But when he realized the results of the misfortune that had befallen his wife, and heard that she had left Underhayes and thrown up the allowance which he had been so much surprised, and disappointed, and satisfied to find her accept at first, Arthur’s heart swelled with a more generous, more happy sentiment than had touched it for months before. Had not this been one of the things which had disgusted him most with human nature, though he had never put it into words? The thought that his wife when she left him, though she would not accept love from him, would accept money, humiliating, degrading thought! With a start and sudden thrill of recognition he heard that she had thrown it aside now, and this one fact threw light to him upon all that went before, and seemed to bring her back to him cleared of a thousand misapprehensions. At last he recognised again his Nancy, proud, rash, daring, imprudent, capable of any outburst of passionate folly, but not of mercenary calculation or the prudence of a deliberate bargain.