God and the Man by Robert W. Buchanan — Read

Meantime, Christian was once more having his dark hour alone; wandering seaward with mad jealousy in his heart, and the shadow of mortal hate upon his face; raging, fretting, planning; darkly, desolately, driven by the wind of his own passion, like a cloud in the wind of its own speed. Had he known the full truth that day, had Kate found him then and told him of the evil wrought by her own feebleness, and the baseness of his rival, he would have flown like a wild beast to avenge his house's injury, and expend his own dark desire; and the hours of his enemy would surely have been numbered. But he felt as yet in his own heart, despite his jealous fury, that he had no righteous cause for violence. The woman he loved had her right, as well as he, and if she chose to seek Richard Orchardson's company, he had no claim to control her liberty of choosing. Nothing had passed between them that would justify his interference; and although he felt mad with her for her pertinacity and her indifference to his personal dislikes and hates, he was in no sense master of her life.

It seemed to him, indeed, at that time, that all was ended between them. She had come like a beautiful spirit on his life, stirring its deepest fountains with a new revivifying light; but now it was over. As calmly and as freely as she came to him--nay, as it seemed, with a kinder touch, and a tenderer smile--she had gone, would daily go, to the man he hated most. He had no power to control her. Bitter as it was to bear, he knew it was hopeless to protest, unless she herself should change of her own free will. With one so pure, so passionless, violent entreaty was of no avail. She was the stronger spirit still, his mistress and his superior--that he felt most keenly; and his baffled anger kept him in despair.