If you have done that, though it is no more than the plainest duty, I will love you for it.

One finds so few people that will do any duty that taxes their self-indulgence." "But he did not ask me to marry him." "Then I do not understand anything about it." "He asked me to love him." "But he meant you to be his wife ?" "Oh yes;--he meant that of course." "And what did you say ?" asked Priscilla.
"That I didn't love him," replied Nora.
"And that was the truth ?" "Yes;--it was the truth." "And what do you regret ?--that you didn't tell him a lie ?" "No;--not that," said Nora slowly.
"What then?
You cannot regret that you have not basely deceived a man who has treated you with a loving generosity ?" They walked on silent for a few yards, and then Priscilla repeated her question.

"You cannot mean that you are sorry that you did not persuade yourself to do evil ?" "I don't want to go back to the islands, and to lose myself there, and to be nobody;--that is what I mean.

And I might have been so much! Could one step from the very highest rung of the ladder to the very lowest and not feel it ?" "But you have gone up the ladder,--if you only knew it," said Priscilla.

"There was a choice given to you between the foulest mire of the clay of the world, and the sun-light of the very God.