This Shelley did not know at the time; nor did he until
afterwards learn the process by which she arrived at her fate.
Too late she became aware how fatal to her interests had been the
intrigues of which she had been the passive instrument; and I suspect
that she was debarred from seeking forgiveness and help partly by
false shame, and partly by the terrible adaptability of weak natures
to the condition of the society in which they find themselves. I have
said that there is not a trace of evidence or a whisper of scandal
against her before her voluntary departure from Shelley, and I have
indicated the most probable motives of that step; but subsequently she
forfeited her claim to a return, even in the eye of the law. Shelley
had information which made him believe that she fell even to the depth
of actual prostitution. If she left him, it would appear that she
herself was deserted in turn by a man in a very humble grade of life;
and it was in consequence of this desertion that she killed herself.
The change in his personal aspect that showed itself at Marlow
appeared also in his writings,--the most typical of his works for this
period being naturally the most complete that issued from his pen, the
"Revolt of Islam.
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