She sank to her seat again.
'Then I know that, although you may love him more than any one in the world, you do not love him better than the work you have promised to do.' 'Heaven forbid!' He had used the very same expression a few moments earlier, but with a different tone; for him it had been an asseveration of good faith, but with her it was more like a prayer.

She had resented his question as if it had been an insult, but when he showed how much he trusted her, she began to distrust herself.

She would die the martyr's death rather than break her vows in deed, but she was too diffident of her own womanhood not to fear a fall from the dignity of heartfelt resignation to the inward ignominy of an earthly regret.

Besides, 'the work she had promised to do' had been promised for his sake, not for its own; not for any gain to her soul, but in the earnest hope that it might profit his, by God's mercy.

Since he was not dead, but alive, the chief purpose of it died with his return to life.