It is hoped that the reader need hardly be informed that Hetta Carbury was a very miserable young woman as soon as she decided that duty compelled her to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague. I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against herself,--the offence against her own dignity as a woman,--was too great to be forgiven. There can be no doubt that it would all have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from any other source. Had he said to her,--when her heart was softest towards him,--I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so, and the history of my love for her was after this fashion, and the history of my declining love is after that fashion, and of this at any rate you may be sure, that this woman has never been near my heart from the first moment in which I saw you;--had he told it to her thus, there would not have been an opening for anger. And he doubtless would have so told it, had not Hetta's brother interfered too quickly. He was then forced to exculpate himself, to confess rather than to tell his own story,--and to admit facts which wore the air of having been concealed, and which had already been conceived to be altogether damning if true. It was that journey to Lowestoft, not yet a month old, which did the mischief,--a journey as to which Hetta was not slow in understanding all that Roger Carbury had thought about it, though Roger would say nothing of it to herself. Paul had been staying at the seaside with this woman in amicable intimacy,--this horrid woman,--in intimacy worse than amicable, and had been visiting her daily at Islington! Hetta felt quite sure that he had never passed a day without going there since the arrival of the woman; and everybody would know what that meant. And during this very hour he had been,--well, perhaps not exactly making love to herself, but looking at her and talking to her, and behaving to her in a manner such as could not but make her understand that he intended to make love to her. 
Hetta Carbury was very miserable after she decided that she had to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague. I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against her dignity as a woman was too great to be forgiven. There can be no doubt that it would have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from another source. If he had said to her, I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so - you may be sure that she would not have been angry.
But he had been forced to confess rather than tell his own story, and to admit facts which had been concealed. It was that journey to Lowestoft, not yet a month old, which did the mischief. Paul had been staying at the seaside with this woman in amicable intimacy, and had been visiting her daily at Islington! Hetta felt quite sure that he had never passed a day without going there; and meanwhile had been behaving to herself in a manner which implied love for her. 