He had rather not marry.

He might do so some day: but he would sacrifice much to avoid the necessity.

If he was weak, he would use what strength he had to the uttermost ere he yielded.

And all the more, because he felt, and reasonably enough, that Valencia was the last woman in the world to make a parson's wife.

He had his ideal of what such a wife should be, if she were to be allowed to exist at all--the same ideal which Mr.Paget has drawn in his charming little book (would that all parsons' wives would read and perpend), the "Owlet of Owlstone Edge." But Valencia would surely not make a Beatrice.