"Dear," and his voice was vibrant with pain, "How could you ever have imagined that any public vows could unite you to him, who were already part of..."
Habit of mind checked him; Ferlie was braver.
"Of you," she finished steadily.
They walked the whole length of the lawn before she added,
"You did not realize that, Cyprian, while there was time. If you had realized it I should not have been free. There was no time to give you time to weigh your love. When you held back my light seemed clear."
"And I had no light," he said shortly.
"You haven't told me whether you now share these modern views about divorce," she reminded him. "Even the Church you nominally belong to is divided in its opinions on the subject. Its members talk very fluently, and go on their way, self-convinced. Like Peter, who, at nineteen, could talk himself into that sort of convinced state about anything."
"There are exceptional circumstances..." Cyprian began, but she stopped him then.
"And now you are going to do it! No, Cyprian. You must be either 'for' or 'against,' with principle at the back of you. Don't you see that everybody's exceptional circumstances would always be his own? That is how the Individual now dethrones God in favour of himself."
"Ferlie, you forget you have not yet told me your circumstances. And I have a right to know."