The Man in Possession — page 315: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

310 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. CHAPTER XXVIII. ‘6 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. WHEN a perfectly selfish person begins to reflect on his selfishness, the result is a sort of moral earth- quake to all previous rules and motives of life. Sir Wilfred lay on that couch and worked himself into a perfect frenzy in his efforts to fathom the depths of Kate's suspected attachment to his rival, and the uselessness of expecting more than mere toleration for himself. He had always felt himself devoid of all attraction for her, and he knew now that bare duty alone com- pelled her to keep on the engagement. At one moment he felt a savage gladness in the idea of Tom Rivers's banishment; at another he reflected gloomily on its uselessness to affect her regard for himself. She was not a weak woman, not one to be flattered, or cajoled, or bribed. He had no physical influence over her, and no palpable grasp of her mind or in- clinations. Whatever he had hoped for when he took her reluctant consent as acceptance, he hoped for no longer. He could not disguise from himself the terrible change that had taken place in her ap- pearance, he could not but ask himself what ghost of happiness he could expect to find in the martyr- dom that marriage foreshadowed to both. ECOMICMHOOKS .' C(O)