Thoughts chased each other through his brain in a confused whirl, until gradually he came to a calmer and more rational frame of mind. He reflected on how she had gone through life despised and guilt-laden, and yet unrepentant, appearing to be satisfied with her past rather than regretting it. Once, in an hour of dire perplexity, he had asked himself whether it was the dull indifference of the brute or the wiles of a devil that made her will so strong and her conscience so lax, and he had not known what to answer. To-day, when it was too late, her true nature was revealed to him. No, she had not been a brute or a devil, but simply a grand and complete human being. One of those perfect, fully developed individuals such as Nature created before a herding social system, with its paralysing ordinances, bungled her handiwork, when every youthful creature was allowed to bloom unhindered into the fulness of its power, and to remain, in good and in evil, part and parcel of the natural life. And as he pondered thus, it seemed to him that the mists which obscure the source of human existence from human knowledge had dispersed a little, and that he had been granted a deeper glimpse than most men into the fathomless gulf of the Unknown. What is generally called good and bad drifted about anchorless on the cloudy surface, but below lay dreaming in majestic strength, the Natural. "And those whom Nature favours," he said aloud to himself, "she lets take root in her mysterious depths, so that they spring boldly into the light, with vision undimmed and conscience untrammelled by the befogging illusions of morality and worldly wisdom." Such a highly favoured, completely-endowed human creature was this abused and abandoned woman. "And I for whom she lived and died, have I deserved such a sacrifice?" he meditated further. "Was I worthy of the trust and confidence she so unhesitatingly placed in me? "With ruthless severity he sat in judgment on himself, and he came out of the ordeal anything but unscathed.