"She had been told too often of her beauty not to know that she was handsomer than the majority of women. She knew that in mental power she was her lover's equal: by birth, by fortune, by every attribute and quality, she was fitted to be his wife, to rule over his household, and to be a purifying and elevating influence in his life. His mother had loved her as warmly as it was possible for that languid nature to love anything. Their two lives were interwoven by the tenderest associations of the past as well as the solemn engagement that bound them in the present. No, it was not possible for Madoline, seeing all things from the standpoint of her own calm and evenly-balanced mind, to imagine infidelity in a lover so long and so closely bound to her. Those sudden aberrations of the human mind which wreck so many lives, and make men and women a world's wonder, had never come within the range of her experience."