She had lived temperately, and had not yet passed the age when happiness can restore a woman's beauty and brightness in a single day.
As for him, he was like a man in a heavenly dream: he floated in the past and the present: the recent and the future seemed obscure and distant, and comparatively in a mist.
But that same afternoon, after a most affectionate farewell, and many promises to return as soon as ever he had discharged his obligations, Griffith Gaunt started for the "Packhorse," to carry to Mercy Leicester, alias Vint, the money Catherine Gaunt had saved by self-denial and economy.
And he went south a worse man than he came.
When he left Mercy Leicester, he was a bigamist in law, but not at heart. Kate was dead to him: he had given her up for ever: and was constant and true to his new wife.
But now he was false to Mercy, yet not true to Kate; and, curiously enough, it was a day or two passed with his lawful wife that had demoralized him. His unlawful wife had hitherto done nothing but improve his character.
But a great fault once committed is often the first link in a chain of acts, that look like crimes, but are, strictly speaking, consequences.
This man, blinded at first by his own foible, and, after that, the sport of circumstances, was single-hearted by nature; and his conscience was not hardened. He desired earnestly to free himself and both his wives from the cruel situation; but, to do this, one of them he saw must be abandoned entirely; and his heart bled for her.
A villain or a fool would have relished the situation; many men would have dallied with it; but, to do this erring man justice, he writhed and sorrowed under it, and sincerely desired to end it.
And this was why he prized Kate's money so. It enabled him to render a great service to her he had injured worse than he had the other, to her he saw he must abandon.