What do you mean by lost?' Osborne raised his head and gazed into the other's eyes with a look of desperate hope. 'Nevill, you will answer me a question if I ask you one, as I have answered you, honestly?' 'Most assuredly.' Osborne had not answered the most important question of all, but he could wait. 'Suppose you loved a woman with all your heart and soul--suppose it was your first love-' 'All that is very easy, for it is my case.' 'Suppose you had been accepted, that you believed you were loved in return, that there was no material impediment to your marriage, that you put on the engaged ring with all the solemnity of a private religious service, and that, in putting it on, you extracted a vow from the girl, would you ask that girl to break that vow the next day?' 'My dear fellow, vows spoken in that way do not bind.' 'I think you an honourable man.
— from Under St Paul's: A Romance by Richard Dowling