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Innocent : her fancy and his fact by Marie Corelli
page 159 of 503 (31%)

"Yes, after all," she went on, still talking to the air, "it's
better and braver to try to do something in the world, rather than
throw myself upon Robin, and be cowardly enough to take him for a
husband when I don't love him. Just for comfort and shelter and
Briar Farm! It would be shameful. And I could not marry a man
unless I loved him quite desperately!--I could not! I'm not sure
that I like the idea of marriage at all,--it fastens a man and
woman together for life, and the time might come when they would
grow tired of each other. How cruel and wicked it would be to
force them to endure each other's company when they perhaps wished
the width of the world between them! No--I don't think I should
care to be married--certainly not to Robin."

She put her manuscript by, and shut and locked the drawer
containing it. Then she went to the open lattice window and looked
out--and thought of the previous night, when Robin had swung
himself up on the sill to talk to her, and they had been all
unaware that Ned Landon was listening down below. A flush of anger
heated her cheeks as she recalled this and all that Robin had told
her of the unprepared attack Landon had made upon him and the
ensuing fight between them. But now? Was it not very strange that
Landon should apparently be in such high favour with Hugo Jocelyn
that he had actually been allowed to stay in the market-town and
enjoy a holiday, which for him only meant a bout of drunkenness?
She could not understand it, and her perplexity increased the more
she thought of it. Leaning far out over the window-sill, she gazed
long and lovingly across the quiet stretches of meadowland,
shining white in the showered splendour of the moon--the tall
trees--the infinite and harmonious peace of the whole scene,--
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