He had never had anyone else to care for, and he had just centred his whole heart on her.

He cared for her as if she had been his daughter and sister, and--and he cared for her in another way that was more than all.

It was a lonely enough place; no one could blame a woman for wanting to leave it; but to leave a man to think her dead when he loved her!" Sophia was touched by the story and touched nearly also by the heart of the man who told it, for in such telling the hearts of speaker and listener beat against one another through finer medium than that which we call space.

But just because she was touched it was characteristic in her to find a point that she could assail.
"I don't see that a woman is specially beholden to a man because he loves her against her will." "Do you mean to say"-- fiercely--"that she was not beholden to him because he taught her everything she knew, and was willing to work to support her ?" "Yes, certainly, she was under obligation for all his kindness, but his being in love with her--that is different." But Alec Trenholme, like many people, could not see a fine point in the heat of discussion.

Afterwards, on reflection he saw what she had meant, but now he only acted in the most unreasonable of ways.
"Well, I don't see it as you do," he said; and then, the picture of suppressed indignation, he took up the pail to go inside and dispose of it.
"I don't know how it can all be," said Sophia considering, "but I'm sure there's a great deal of good in her." At this, further silence, even out of deference to her, seemed to him inadequate.