Passage Analysis
"The thought choked him with despair, not merely because he would soon lose a safe hiding place, but because he also knew he'd lost affection and companionship as well. He saw her there in the dark before him--Nur, with all her smiles and fun-making, her love and her unhappiness--and the terrible depression he felt made him aware that she had penetrated much deeper within him than he had imagined, that she had become a part of him, and that she should never have been separated from this life of his which was in shreds and tottering on the brink of an abyss. Closing his eyes in the darkness, he silently acknowledged that he did love her and that he would not hesitate to give his own life to bring her back safe. Then one thought made him growl in anger: "And yet would her destruction cause so much as a single ripple anywhere?" No, definitely not. Not even a pretense of grief would be made for loss of Nur, who was only a woman with no protector, adrift on a se...