“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to⁠—cooperate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!”

“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.”

“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race⁠—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance⁠—of substituting peace for war⁠—freedom for bondage⁠—religion for superstition⁠—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.”

After a considerable pause, I said⁠—“And Miss Oliver? Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?”