Then he thought of sending it to Mrs.Woodward, and asking her how, after that, could she think that he should ever again enter her doors at Hampton.
Finally he tore it into a thousand bits, and threw them behind the fire.
'Share their happiness!' and as he repeated the words he gave the last tear to the fragments of paper which he still held in his hand.

Could he at that moment as easily have torn to shreds all hope of earthly joys for those two lovers, he would then have done it, and cast the ruins to the flames.
Oh! what a lesson he might have learnt from Linda! And yet what were his injuries to hers?
He in fact had not been injured, at least not by him against whom the strength of his wrath most fiercely raged.

The two men had both admired Gertrude, but Norman had started on the race first.

Before Alaric had had time to know his own mind, he had learnt that Norman claimed the beauty as his own.

He had acknowledged to himself that Norman had a right to do so, and had scrupulously abstained from interfering with him.