AC dBooks

. ."
"Well?" I asked, though I saw what he was going to say.
"Mary," he said, breathing, hard and fast, "you must come to me."
I made a sudden cry, though I tried not to.
"Oh, I know," he said. "It's not what we could wish. But we'll be open
about it. We'll face it out. Why shouldn't we? I shall anyway. And if
your father and the Bishop say anything to me I'll tell them what I
think of the abominable marriage they forced you into. As for you, dear,
I know you'll have to bear something. All the conventional canting
hypocrisies! Every man who has bought his wife, and every woman who has
sold herself into concubinage--there are thousands and thousands of them
all the world over, and they'll try . . . perhaps they'll try . . . but
let them try. If they want to trample the life out of you they'll have
to walk over me first--yes, by God they will!"
"But Martin . . ."
"Well?"
"Do you mean that I . . . I am . . . to . . . to live with you without
marriage?"
"It's the only thing possible, isn't it?" he said.


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