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There was no choice.

He took up the quill, and wrote quickly; too quickly perhaps; for a little of the abiding bitterness crept despite him into his words:

You are intolerant, and therefore it follows that your actions are cruel and unjust. For cruelty and injustice are the only fruits ever yielded by intolerance. You will never again be able to do anything more cruel and unjust than you have now done, for never again will you find a heart as fond as mine and therefore as susceptible to pain at your hands. This pain I accept as the first wound taken in the service of the cause which I have embraced. Accept it I must, since I cannot be false to my conscience, my duty, and my sense of right, even to be true to you.

Thus he double-bolted the door which she herself had slammed. A door which was to stand as an impenetrable barrier between two loving, aching, obstinate, conscience-ridden hearts.

He folded, tied, and sealed the letter, then rang for Johnson, his valet, the tall, active young negro who shared his wanderings, and bade him see it despatched.