'
'I only said that this was a case in which it might be difficult
for you to see your duty plainly.'
'Why should it be?'
'You would not have her--break her heart?' Then he was silent for
awhile, turning over in his mind the proposition which now seemed
to have been made to him. If the question came to that,--should she
be allowed to break her heart and die, or should he save her from
that fate by sanctioning her marriage with Tregear? If the choice
could be put to him plainly by some supernal power, what then
would he choose? If duty required him to prevent this marriage,
his duty could not be altered by the fact that his girl would
avenge herself upon him by dying! If such a marriage were in
itself wrong, that wrong could not be made right by the fear of
such a catastrophe. Was it not often the case that duty required
that someone should die? And yet as he thought of it,--though that
the someone whom his mind had suggested was the one female
creature now left belonging to him,--he put his hand up to his brow
and trembled with agony.
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