He believed that the matter might be so represented to his girl as to make her feel that it was out of the question.

He hardly doubted but that he could stamp it out.

Though he should have to take her away into some further corner of the world, he would stamp it out.

But she, when this foolish passion of hers should have been thus stamped out, could never be the pure, the bright, the unsullied, unsoiled thing, of the possession of which he had thought so much.

He had never spoken of his hopes about her even to his wife, but in the silence of his very silent life he had thought much of the day when he would give her to some noble youth,--noble with all gifts of nobility, including rank and wealth,--who might be fit to receive her.