Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, Volume 2 by James Grant

But for her love for Bevil Goring, Alison felt at times that she would have sacrificed herself for her father. Selfish and coldly proud though his nature was, still he was her father, and she was his last link to earth -- the last link of that long chain of ancestors he prized so much, and who went back to the years of the War of Independence, and beyond them.

Yes -- out of pity for him she might have sacrificed herself to Cadbury; but now the image of Bevil Goring rendered that impossible, and even death itself preferable.