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Charlotte's Inheritance by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
page 59 of 542 (10%)
M. Lenoble speedily discovered that the law had made no provision for the
necessities of a chivalrous young student eager to unite himself with a
friendless foreign woman, who could not produce so much as one of the
thirty witnesses required to establish her identity. A very little
consideration showed Gustave that a marriage between him and Susan
Meynell in France was an impossibility. He explained this, and asked her
if she would trust him as she had trusted Montague Kingdon. In Jersey the
marriage might easily be solemnised. Would she go with him to Jersey, to
stay there so long as the English law required for the solemnization of
their union?

"Why should you take so much trouble about me?" said Susan, in her low
sad voice. "You are too good, too generous. I am not worth so much care
and thought from you."

"Does that mean that you will not trust me, Susan?"

"I would trust you with my life in a desert, thousands of miles from the
rest of mankind--with a happier life than mine. I have no feeling in my
heart but love for you, and faith in you."

After this the rest was easy. The lovers left the Pension Magnotte one
bright summer morning, and journeyed to Jersey, where, after a
fortnight's sojourn, the English Protestant church united them in the
bonds of matrimony.

Susan was a Protestant, Gustave a Catholic, but the difference of
religion divided them no more than the difference of country. They came
back to Paris directly after the marriage, and M. Lenoble took a very
modest lodging for himself and his wife in a narrow street near the
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