old-fashioned quill finally set it down.

This last result of his selection of the fittest, Winthrop received one
morning at breakfast. He read it; then started out and went through his
day as usual, having occupations and engagements to fill every hour. But
days end; always that last ten minutes at night will come, no matter how
one may put it off. Winthrop put off his until after midnight; but one
o'clock found him caught at last; he was alone before his fire, he could
no longer prevent himself from taking out that letter and brooding over
it.

He imagined East Angels, he imagined Lanse; he imagined him in Aunt
Katrina's pleasant room, with the bright little evening fire sparkling
on the hearth, with Aunt Katrina herself beaming and happy, and Margaret
near. Yes, Lanse had everything, he had always had everything. He had
never worked an hour in his life; he had pleased himself invariably; he
had given heed to no one and yielded to no one; and now when he was
forced at last by sheer physical disability to return home, all comfort,
all devotion awaited him there, bestowed, too, by the very persons he
had most neglected and wronged. "Unjust! unjust!"--this was his bitter
comment.

If it had not been for the fear that kept him fettered, he would have
thrown everything to the winds and started again for Florida that night,
he would have swept the woman he loved out of that house, and borne her
away somewhere--anywhere--and he should have felt that he was justified
in doing it. But Margaret--he had always to reckon with that
determination of hers to do right, even in the face of her own despair.
And as to what was right he had never been able in the least to confuse
her, to change her, as a man can often change the woman who loves him;
just the same she saw it now, and had seen it from the beginning, in
spite of all his arguments and pleadings, in spite of all her own.

She loved him. But she would not yield. And these two forces, both so
strong that they bent her and swayed her like torturers--if the strife
should begin again between them, as it must if he should go to her
entreating, was there not danger (as the Doctor, indeed, had written)
that her slender strength would give way entirely? He had never
forgotten the feeling in his arms of her inert form as he laid it down
that day. He should never be able to overpower--he felt that he should
not--that something, something stronger than herself, which he had seen
loo