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"And the worst of it all," thought he, "is that just now, at the

very moment when my great work is approaching completion" (he was

thinking of the project he was bringing forward at the time),

"when I stand in need of all my mental peace and all my energies,

just now this stupid worry should fall foul of me. But what's to

be done? I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and

worry without having the force of character to face them.

"I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my

mind," he said aloud.

"The question of her feelings, of what has passed and may be

passing in her soul, that's not my affair; that's the affair of

her conscience, and falls under the head of religion," he said to

himself, feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to

which division of regulating principles this new circumstance

could be properly referred.