Glennard did himself injustice. it was from the unexpected
discovery of his own pettiness that he chiefly suffered. Our
self-esteem is apt to be based on the hypothetical great act we
have never had occasion to perform; and even the most self-
scrutinizing modesty credits itself negatively with a high
standard of conduct. Glennard had never thought himself a hero;
but he had been certain that he was incapable of baseness. We all
like our wrong-doings to have a becoming cut, to be made to order,
as it were; and Glennard found himself suddenly thrust into a garb
of dishonor surely meant for a meaner figure.

The immediate result of his first weeks of wretchedness was the
resolve to go to town for the winter. He knew that such a course
was just beyond the limit of prudence; but it was easy to allay
the fears of Alexa who, scrupulously vigilant in the management of
the household, preserved the American wife's usual aloofness from
her husband's business cares. Glennard felt that he could not
trust himself to a winter's solitude with her. He had an
unspeakable dread of her learning the truth about the letters, yet
could not be sure of steeling himself against the suicidal impulse
of avowal. His very soul was parched for sympathy; he thirsted
for a voice of pity and comprehension. But would his wife pity?
Would she understand? Again he found himself brought up abruptly
against his incredible ignorance of her nature. The fact that he
knew well enough how she would behave in the ordinary emergencies
of life, that he could count, in such contingencies, on the kind
of high courage and directness he had always divined in her, made
him the more hopeless of her entering into the torturous
psychology of an act that he himself could no longer explain or
understand. It would have been easier had she been more complex,