As for taking up this life of poverty and soul-starvation for the sake of a little love, it would be an ignoble martyrdom, the sacrifice of a grand unmeasured life to a shallow pleasure.

He was no longer a young man now; he had no time to waste.

Poor Margret! he wondered if it hurt her?
He signed the deed, and left it in the slow, quiet way natural to him, and after a while stooped to pat the dog softly, who was trying to lick his hand,--with the hard fingers shaking a little, and a smothered fierceness in the half-closed eye, like a man who is tortured and alone.
There is a miserable drama acted in other homes than the Tuileries, when men have found a woman's heart in their way to success, and trampled it down under an iron heel.

Men like Napoleon must live out the law of their natures, I suppose,--on a throne, or in a mill.
So many trifles that day roused the undercurrent of old thoughts and old hopes that taunted him,--trifles, too, that he would not have heeded at another time.

Pike came in on business, a bunch of bills in his hand.