Women love to think themselves uncomprehended--nor often without reason
in that foible; for man, howsoever sagacious, rarely does entirely
comprehend woman, howsoever simple. And in this her sex has the
advantage over ours. Our hearts are bare to their eyes, even though they
can never know what have been our lives. But we may see every action of
their lives, guarded and circumscribed in conventional forms, while their
hearts will have many mysteries to which we can never have the key. But,
in more than the ordinary sense of the word, Caroline Montfort never had
been a woman uncomprehended. Nor even in her own sex did she possess one
confidante. Only the outward leaves of that beautiful flower opened to
the sunlight. The leaves round the core were gathered fold upon fold
closely as when life itself was in the bud.

As all the years of her wedded existence her heart had been denied the
natural household vents, so by some strange and unaccountable chance her
intellect also seemed restrained and pent from its proper freedom and
play. During those barren years, she had read--she had pondered--she had
enjoyed a commune with those whose minds instruct others, and still her
own intelligence, which in early youth had been characterised by singular
vivacity and brightness, and which Time had enriched with every womanly
accomplishment, seemed chilled and objectless. It is not enough that a
mind should be cultured--it should have movement as well as culture.
Caroline Montfort's lay quiescent like a beautiful form spellbound to
repose, but not to sleep. Looking on her once, as he stood amongst a
crowd whom her beauty dazzled, a poet said abruptly: "Were my guess not a
sacrilege to one so spotless and so haughty, I should say that I had hit
on the solution of an enigma that long perplexed me; and in the core of
that queen of the lilies, could we strip the leaves folded round it, we
should find Remorse."