Chapter 35 He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He deferred

his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment,

a good yet stern, a conscientious, yet implacable man, can inflict on one who has offended

him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upgrading word, he can drive to impress me

momentally with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favor. Not that St.

John harbored a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness, not that he would have injured a hair of

my head if it had been fully in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle he was

superior to the mean gratification of vengeance. He had forgiven me for saying I scorned him

and his love, but he had not forgotten the words, and as long as he and I lived he never

would forget them. I saw by his look when he turned to me that they were always written

on the air between me and him. Whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and

their echo toned every answer he gave me. He did not abstain from conversing with me,

he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk, and I fear the corrupt

man within him had a pleasure unimparted to and unshared by the pure Christian in a

vensing with what skill he could while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract

from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly

communicated a certain austere charm to his language in manner. To me he was in reality

become no longer flesh, but marble. His eye was a cold bright blue gem, his tongue

is speaking instrument, nothing more. All this was tortured to me, refined lingering

torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief which harassed

and crushed me altogether. I felt how if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep

sunless source could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood,

...