Alas! her simple words were true,--he had grown away from her.

Her only fault was that she had not grown with him, and surely he could not reproach her with that.
"No," he said to himself, "I will never leave her so long as her heart clings to me.

I have been rash, but she shall not pay the forfeit.
And if I may think of myself, my life need not be wretched because she cannot share all my being with me.

The common human qualities are more than all exceptional gifts.

She has a woman's heart; and what talent of mine is to be named by the love a true woman can offer in exchange for these divided and cold affections?
If it had pleased God to mate me with one more equal in other ways, who could share my thoughts, who could kindle my inspiration, who had wings to rise into the air with me as well as feet to creep by my side upon the earth,--what cannot such a woman do for a man! "What! cast away the flower I took in the bud because it does not show as I hoped it would when it opened?
I will stand by my word; I will be all as a man that I promised as a boy.