Any one who knows him cannot wonder at his inward confession, that if all this had happened little more than a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her; the impetuous determining impulse which would have moved him would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life forevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last the rescue he had begun in that monitory redemption of the necklace. 
Inwardly he confessed that if all this had happened a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether he loved her; his impulse would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life forevermore from loneliness, and to complete the rescue he had begun in that redemption of the necklace.
