His instinct was
unfailing in the detection of the note of affected feeling; so much
the stronger the impression produced upon him by a soul unveiling
itself in the _naivete_ of genuine emotion. That all was
sincere he could have no doubt. Gradually he lost his critical
attitude, and at moments surprised himself under the influence of a
sympathetic instinct. Then he would lose consciousness of her words
for an interval, during which he pondered her face, and was wrought
upon by its strange beauty. The pure and touching spirituality of
Maud's countenance had never been so present to him as now; she was
pale with very earnestness, her eyes seemed larger than their wont,
there was more than womanly sweetness in the voice which so
unconsciously modulated itself to the perfect expression of all she
uttered. Towards the end, he could but yield himself completely to
the spell, and, when she ceased, he, like Adam at the end of the
angel's speech, did not at once perceive that her voice was silent.
"It was long," she said, after telling the outward circumstances of
her life with her aunt, "before I came to understand how differently
I had been brought up from other children.
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