to sit above
his heart: He must and would let this man, her husband, know; but even if
that caused no open scandal, could he go on deceiving those who, if they
knew of an illicit love, would no longer allow him to be their
representative? If it were known that she was his mistress, he could no
longer maintain his position in public life--was he not therefore in
honour bound; of his own accord, to resign it? Night and day he was
haunted by the thought: How can I, living in defiance of authority,
pretend to authority over my fellows? How can I remain in public life?
But if he did not remain in public life, what was he to do? That way of
life was in his blood; he had been bred and born into it; had thought of
nothing else since he was a boy. There was no other occupation or
interest that could hold him for a moment--he saw very plainly that he
would be cast away on the waters of existence.

So the battle raged in his proud and twisted spirit, which took
everything so hard--his nature imperatively commanding him to keep his
work and his power for usefulness; his conscience telling him as urgently
that if he sought to wield authority, he must obey it.

He entered the beech-grove at the height of this misery, flaming with
rebellion against the dilemma which Fate had placed before him; visited
by gusts of resentment against a passion, which forced him to pay the
price, either of his career, or of his self-respect; gusts, followed by
remorse that he could so for one moment regret his love for that tender
creature. The face of Lucifer was not more dark, more tortured, than
Miltoun's face in the twilight of the grove, above those kingdoms of the
world, for which his ambition and his conscience fought. He threw
himself down among the trees; and stretching out his arms, by chance
touched a beetle trying to crawl over the grassless soil. Some bird had
maimed it. He took the little creature up. The beetle truly could no
longer work, but it was spared the fate lying before himself. The beetle
was not, as he would be, when his power of movement was destroyed,
conscious of his own wasted life. The world would not roll away down
there. He would still see himself cumbering the ground, when his powers
were taken, from him. This thought was torture. Why had he been
suffered to meet her, to love her, and to be loved by her? What had made
him so certain from the first moment, if she were not meant for him? If
he lived to be