Is not your love as complete as mine ?' He rose and moved away, saying-- 'Open it! Look at the letters!' 'No, that I can't do.

What can it be that troubles you so?
Are they letters that I _ought_ not to see ?' He could bear it no longer.
'Yes,' he answered, brusquely, 'I suppose they are.' 'You mean that you have preserved letters which, as often as you open that drawer, remind you of someone else ?--that you purposely keep them so near your hand ?' 'Beatrice, I had no right to destroy them.' 'No right!' Her eyes flashed, and her tongue trembled with its scorn.
'You mean you had no wish.' 'If I had no right, I could scarcely have the wish.' Wilfrid was amazed at his own contemptible quibbling, but in truth he was not equal to the occasion.

He could not defend himself in choice phrases; in a sort of desperate carelessness he flung out the first retort that offered itself.

He was on the point of throwing over everything, of declaring that all must be at an end between them; yet courage failed for that.

Nor courage only; the woman before him was very grand in her indignation, her pale face was surpassingly beautiful.