around her made the world well nigh disappear; her surrender was
entire, and if Sinai had thundered in her ears she would not have
heard. She was destitute of that power, which her sister possessed,
of surveying herself from a distance. On the contrary, her emotion
enveloped her, and the safeguard of reflection on it was impossible
to her.

As to Frank, no doubt ever approached him. He was intoxicated, and
beside himself. He had been brought up in a clean household, knowing
nothing of the vice by which so many young men are overcome, and
woman hitherto had been a mystery to him. Suddenly he found himself
the possessor of a beautiful creature, whose lips it was lawful to
touch and whose heartbeats he could feel as he pressed her to his
breast. It was permitted him to be alone with her, to sit on the
floor and rest his head on her knees, and he had ventured to capture
one of her slippers and carry it off to London, where he kept it
locked up amongst his treasures. If he had been drawn over Fenmarket
sluice in a winter flood he would not have been more incapable of
resistance.

Every now and then Clara thought she discerned in Madge that she was
not entirely content, but the cloud-shadows swept past so rapidly and
were followed by such dazzling sunshine that she was perplexed and
hoped that her sister's occasional moodiness might be due to parting
and absence, or the anticipation of them. She never ventured to say
anything about Frank to Madge, for there was something in her which
forbade all approach from that side. Once when he had shown his
ignorance of what was so familiar to the Hopgoods, and Clara had
expected some sign of dissatisfaction from her sister, she appeared
ostentatiously to champion him against anticipated criticism. Clara