"Love does not want teaching," she said--"it comes--when it will,
and where it will! It has not come to me, and you cannot force it,
Robin! If I were your wife--your wife without any wife's love for
you--I should grow to hate Briar Farm!--yes, I should!--I should
pine and die in the very place where I have been so happy!--and I
should feel that HE"--here she pointed to the sculptured Sieur
Amadis--"would almost rise from this tomb and curse me!"

She spoke with sudden, almost dramatic vehemence, and he gazed at
her in mute amazement. Her eyes flashed, and her face was lit up
by a glow of inspiration and resolve.

"You take me just for the ordinary sort of girl," she went on--"A
girl to caress and fondle and marry and make the mother of your
children,--now for that you might choose among the girls about
here, any of whom would be glad to have you for a husband. But,
Robin, do you think I am really fit for that sort of life always?
--can't you believe in anything else but marriage for a woman?"

As she thus spoke, she unconsciously created a new impression on
his mind,--a veil seemed to be suddenly lifted, and he saw her as
he had never before seen her--a creature removed, isolated and
unattainable through the force of some inceptive intellectual
quality which he had not previously suspected. He answered her,
very gently--

"Dear, I cannot believe in anything else but love for a woman," he
said--"She was created and intended for love, and without love she
must surely be unhappy."