And the thought that she could not understand, angered
him.
He said, stubbornly: "No, I can't remain in public life."
"But what has it to do with politics? It's such a little thing."
"If it had been a little thing to me, should I have left you at
Monkland, and spent those five weeks in purgatory before my illness? A
little thing!"
She exclaimed with sudden fire:
"Circumstances aye the little thing; it's love that's the great thing."
Miltoun stared at her, for the first time understanding that she had a
philosophy as deep and stubborn as his own. But he answered cruelly:
"Well! the great thing has conquered me!"
And then he saw her looking at him, as if, seeing into the recesses of
his soul, she had made some ghastly discovery. The look was so mournful,
so uncannily intent that he turned away from it.
"Perhaps it is a little thing," he muttered; "I don't know. I can't see
my way. I've lost my bearings; I must find them again before I can do
anything."
But as if she had not heard, or not taken in the sense of his words, she
said again:
"Oh! don't let us alter anything; I won't ever want what you can't
give."
And this stubbornness, when he was doing the very thing that would give
him to her utterly, seemed to him unreasonable.
"I've had it out with myself," he said. "Don't let's talk about it any
more.
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