noon
But if this was a satisfaction to Effie , in so far as it relieved her heart of a burden , it brought to her a burden of another kind . The mother soon saw how matters stood with the heart of Lindsay , and she , moreover , saw that her or her daughter 's gratitude could not be complete so long as he was denied the boon of being allowed to marry the girl he had saved from the gallows , and she waited her opportunity of breaking the delicate subject to Effie . It was not time yet , when Effie was an invalid , and even so far wasted and worn as to cause apprehensions of her ultimate fate , even death ; nor perhaps would that time ever come when she could bear to hear the appeal without pain ; for though Stormonth had ruined her character and her peace of mind -- nay , had left her in circumstances almost unprecedented for treachery , baseness , and cruelty -- he retained still the niche where the offerings of a first love had been made : his image had been indeed burned into the virgin heart , and no other form of man 's face , though representing the possessor of beauty , wealth , and worldly honours , would ever take away that treasured symbol . It haunted her even as a shadow of herself , which , disappearing at sundown , comes again at the rising of the noon ; nay , she would have been contented to make other sacrifices equally great as that which she had made ; nor wild moors , nor streams , nor rugged hills , would have stopped her in an effort to look upon him once more , and replace that inevitable image by the real vision , which had first taken captive her young heart . But time passed , bringing the usual ameliorations to the miserable . Effie got so far better in health that she became able to resume , in a languid way , her former duties , with the exception of those of `` the gentle clerk '' -- for of these she had had enough ; even the very look of a bank-draft brought a shudder over her ; nor would she have entered the Bank of Scotland again , even with a good cheque for a thousand pounds , to have been all her own . Meanwhile the patient George had plied a suit which he could only express by his eyes or the attentions of one who worships , but he never alluded , even in their conversations , to the old sacrifice .