Common decency and courage cannot.

Fear of your unhappiness and mine cannot.

No, even the certitude of your contempt, some day, is powerless to halt me now.

I could not love; I am utterly incapable of loving you enough to balance the sacrifice.

And that is final." Grace Ferrall came into the room and found a duel of silence in progress under the dull fire-glow tinting the ceiling.
"Another quarrel," she commented, turning on the current of the drop-light above the desk from which Siward had risen at her entrance.
"You quarrel enough to marry.