Why should she have brought us together if she had not meant that we should love each other?
What have we in common--I, the daughter of a felon; you, a nobleman, proud of your ancestry, proud of your name?
Oh, Norman, if I could but die here at your feet, and save you from myself!" Even as she spoke she sank sobbing, no longer on to his breast, no longer with her arms clasped round his neck, but at his feet.
He raised her in his arms--for he loved her with passionate love.
"Madaline," he said, in a low voice, "do not make my task harder for me.
That which I have to do is indeed bitter to me--do not make it harder." His appeal touched her.

For his sake she must try to be strong.
Slowly he looked up at the long line of noblemen and women whose faces shone down upon him; slowly he looked at her graceful figure and bowed head of his wife, the daughter of a felon--the first woman who had ever entered those walls with even the semblance of a stain upon her name.

As he looked at her the thought came to him that, if his housekeeper had told him that she had inadvertently placed such a person--the daughter of a felon--in his kitchen, he would never have rested until she had been sent away.
He must part from her--this lovely girl-wife whom he loved with such passionate love.

The daughter of a criminal could not reign at Beechgrove.

If the parting cost his life and hers it must take place.