Thyrza

I can tell you, you see, what I know to be the truth, that you missed the great opportunity of your life when you abandoned Thyrza. Her love would have made of you what mine never could, even though she herself had been taken from you very soon.

Egremont's Lambeth vocation, Thyrza's love, and the gossip-forced abandonment fuse into a class-romance tragedy whose moral is spoken at the end; Annabel's verdict locks the ledger, so plot scores 86.

When Mr. Bower passed the library in the dinner-hour on Monday, and, after seeing Thyrza Trent come out, forthwith observed Mr. Egremont standing within at the window, his mind busied itself with the coincidence very much as it might have been expected to do.

Thyrza, Egremont, Bower, and the Lambeth watchers are individuated by how they read a doorway — luminous girl against half-committed philanthropist under vulgar surveillance — so cast scores 88.

It was not without much reluctance, much debate with conscience, that Bunce allowed his child to remain at Eastbourne. He could not, of course, have finally refused consent to a plan which might be the means of saving Bessie's life…

Forty-one chapters of lake and lodging; Eastbourne and the library crisis accelerate, but political and charity dilations slow the middle to social-realist tempo, so pace scores 82.

There were three at the breakfast-table--Mr. Newthorpe, his daughter Annabel, and their visitor (Annabel's Cousin), Miss Paula Tyrrell. It was a small, low, soberly-furnished room, the walls covered with carelessly-hung etchings and water-colours…

Sober room inventory and lake light open without flourish — exact furniture of privilege before Lambeth heat arrives — so prose scores 87.

The vulgar in Lambeth are not a jot less diligent in prying and gossip than are their kin in Mayfair. And chance is wont to be mischief-making all the world over.

Ullswater against Lambeth library gossip — two class geographies that share the same prying eye — mapped as rooms that cannot safely share a love story, so world scores 89.

The casements were open to let in the air of a July morning. Between the thickets of the garden the eye caught glimpses of sun-smitten lake and sheer hillside; for the house stood on the shore of Ullswater.

Lake air and thickets establish privilege quietly before factory Lambeth enters — inviting pastoral frame rather than shock open — so hook scores 84.

Her love would have made of you what mine never could, even though she herself had been taken from you very soon. I can tell you the mere truth, you see. Dare you still ask for me?

Philanthropic idealism and factory-girl love treated as a missed vocation rather than Dickensian rescue — Gissing refuses both melodrama and pure pastoral escape — so innov scores 85.

'Shall we go up to the Head?' Egremont asked. 'No higher.' She said it with a significant look, and he understood her.

Annabel keeps the hand and refuses the climb — lucid renunciation after naming Thyrza's lost opportunity, not wedding triumph — so ending scores 86.