This certainty he would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend.
When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise.

It was a matter of course that he should return to public life,--so said Lady Laura;--and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower without a child.

"Whether it be a bad life or a good life," said Lady Laura, "you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth having after it.

We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare." As she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they bore upon herself.

She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now she was self-banished into absolute obscurity.