The House of Mirth
Eventually, Lily Bart receives a ten-thousand-dollar inheritance from her Aunt Peniston, which she arranges to use to repay Gus Trenor. Distraught by her misfortunes, Lily has by this time begun regularly using a sleeping draught of chloral hydrate to escape the pain of poverty and social ostracism. Once she has repaid all her debts, Lily takes an overdose of the sleeping draught and dies; perhaps it is suicide, perhaps an accident. That very morning, Lawrence Selden arrives to her quarters, to finally propose marriage, but finds Lily Bart dead. Among her belongings are receipts for her payments toward the debt she owed to Gus Trenor, proving that her financial dealings with Trenor were honorable and not evidence of an improper relationship. His realization allows him to feel sympathy and closeness for her, and he is clearly distraught by her death.
The House of Mirth
Lawrence Selden—A young lawyer who, although not wealthy himself, is able to move easily within and without Old New York's elite social circles through kinship with old-line New York families. He has known Lily since her "coming out" eleven years earlier. For all this time he has been in the background of her life. He views the comings and goings of New York's high society with the detachment and the objectivity of an outsider —a characteristic that Lily not only admires but also that allows her to view those people in her surroundings in an objective, critical and a not-so-flattering way. She becomes fascinated and envies his independence from the "tribe" and the freedom that has given him. Her encounters with Selden underscore the conflict between her inner voice —her self-hood at its core— and the outer voices of her reference group. It is from Selden's description, assessment and admiration of Lily's outward characteristics that we glean those attributes that contribute to New York high society's perception and misperceptions of who she is. He can be brutally honest about Lily's superficiality and artificiality and simultaneously appreciate the sparks of freedom and spontaneity that temper these negatives. These mutual admirable qualities give way to their romantic regard for one another. He is not, however, free from the social pressure of rumor. Though he has shown Lily consistent friendship, he abandons her when she becomes the victim of appearances that put her virtue, as an unmarried woman,in question.