So that she might win him she had been ready to throttle every doubt of his honesty.  But now the indubitable fact that he was a thief seemed utterly monstrous and insupportable.  And, moreover, his crime was exceptionally cruel.  Was it conceivable that he could so lightly cause so much distress of spirit to a woman so aged, defenceless, and kind?  According to the doctor, the shock of the robbery had not been the originating cause of Mrs. Maldon’s death; but it might have been; quite possibly it had hastened death....  Louis was not merely a thief; he was a dastardly thief.

But even that in her eyes did not touch the full height of his offence.  The vilest quality in him was his capacity to seem innocent.  She could recall the exact tone in which he had exclaimed:  “Would you believe that old Batch practically accused me of stealing the old lady’s money?...  Don’t you think it’s a shame?” The recollection filled her with frigid anger.  Her resentment of the long lie which he had lived in her presence since their betrothal was tremendous in its calm acrimony.  A man who could behave as he had behaved would stop at nothing, would be capable of all.

She contrasted his conduct with the grim candour of Julian Maldon, whom she now admired.  It was strange and dreadful that both the cousins should be thieves; the prevalence of thieves in that family gave her a shudder.  But she could not judge Julian Maldon severely.  He did not appear to her as a real thief.  He had committed merely an indiscretion.  It was his atonement that made her admire him.  Though she hated confessions, though she had burnt his exasperating document, she nevertheless liked the manner of his atonement.  Whereas she contemned Louis for having confessed.

“He thought he was dying and so he confessed!” she reflected with asperity.  “He hadn’t even the pluck to go through with what he had begun....  Ah!  If I had committed a crime and once denied it, I would deny it with my last breath, and no torture should drag it out of me!”

And she thought:  “I am punished.  This is my punishment for letting myself be engaged while Mrs. Maldon was dying.”

Often she had dismissed as childish the notion that she was to blame for accepting Louis just when she did.  But now it returned full of power and overwhelmed her.  And like a whipped child she remembered Mrs. Maldon’s warning:  “My nephew is not to be trusted.  The woman who married him would suffer horribly.”  And she was the woman who had married him.  It seemed to her that the warnings of the dying must of necessity prove to be valid.