For the present the place dearest to Redworth of all places on earth was unendurable.
Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the market, fast as asparagus-heads for cutting: a circumstance that added stings to reflection.

Had he been only a little bolder, a little less the fanatical devotee of his rule of masculine honour, less the slave to the letter of success....

But why reflect at all?
Here was a goodly income approaching, perhaps a seat in Parliament; a station for the airing of his opinions--and a social status for the wife now denied to him.
The wife was denied to him; he could conceive of no other.

The tyrant-ridden, reticent, tenacious creature had thoroughly wedded her in mind; her view of things had a throne beside his own, even in their differences.

He perceived, agreeing or disagreeing, the motions of her brain, as he did with none other of women; and this it is which stamps character on her, divides her from them, upraises and enspheres.