I can't stop you--I see that.

If you think this thing is your 'duty' you'll do it if it kills us all--and you too! If you have to go--I shall do nothing--can do nothing--but wait till you come back to me! Whatever happens, darling--no matter how you fail--don't ever be afraid to come back to me." He folded his arms now--did not attempt to hold her--gave her the freedom she asked and promised her the love she had almost feared to lose--and her whole carefully constructed plan seemed like a child's sand castle for a moment; her heroic decision the wildest folly.
He was not even looking at her; she saw his strong, clean-cut profile dark against the moonlit house, a settled patience in its lines.

Duty! Here was duty, surely, with tenderest happiness.

She was leaning toward him--her hand was seeking his, when she heard through the fragrant silence a sound from her mother's room--the faint creak of her light rocking chair.

She could not sleep--she was sitting up with her trouble, bearing it quietly as she had so many others.
The quiet everyday tragedy of that distasteful life--the slow withering away of youth and hope and ambition into a gray waste of ineffectual submissive labor--not only of her life, but of thousands upon thousands like her--it all rose up like a flood in the girl's hot young heart.
Ross had turned to her--was holding out his arms to her.