I did not expect to be loved as I loved her.

I would have given so much, and been content to take so little.

What is there I would not have done--what sacrifice of my own pride that I would not have happily made to win her! O my darling, even in your desertion of me you might have trusted me better than this! You would have found me fond and faithful through every trial, your friend in spite of every wrong." He knelt down by the grave, and pressed his lips to the granite on which George Sedgewick's name was chiselled.
"I owe it to the dead to discover her fate," he said to himself, as he rose from that reverent attitude.

"I owe it to the dead to penetrate the secret of her new life, to assure myself that she is happy, and has fallen under no fatal influence." The Listers were still abroad, and Gilbert was very glad that it was so.
It would have excruciated him to hear his sister's comments on Marian's conduct, and to perceive the suppressed exultation with which she would most likely have discussed this unhappy termination to an engagement which had been entered on in utter disregard of her counsel..