The Abbess of Vlaye by Stanley J. Weyman

There is born of the enthusiasm of self-denial a happiness that while the fervour lasts seems all-sufficing. The skirmish that has routed the van of jealousy stands for the battle; nor does the victor foresee that with the fall of night the enemy will flock again to the attack, and by many an insidious onset strive to change the fortune of the day.

Still once to have felt the generous impulse, once to have trodden self underfoot and risen god-like above the baser thoughts, is something. And if Bonne and her brother were destined to find the victory less complete than they thought, if they were to know moments when the worst in them raised its head, they were but as the best of us. And again -- a reflection somewhat more humorous -- had these two been able to read the mind of the man of whom each was thinking, they had met with so curious an enlightenment that they had hardly been able to look at one another. To say that des Ageaux entertained no tender feeling for any one were to say more than the truth; for during the last few days a weakness had crept unwelcome and unbidden into his heart. But he kept it sternly in the background -- he who had naught to do with such things -- and it did not tend in the direction of the Countess. In point of fact the Lieutenant had other and more serious food for thought; other and more pressing anxieties than love. Forty-eight hours had disclosed the weakness of the position in which he had chosen to place himself. He foresaw, if not the certainty, the probability of defeat. And defeat in the situation he had taken up might be attended by hideous consequences.