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"
Oh! my God, I thought I hated him!"
The Colonel knelt beside her. He took her hand and she let him keep it.
She, looked down into his face, with a pitiable tenderness, and said in a
weak voice.
"And you do love me a little?"
The Colonel vowed and protested. He kissed her hand and her lips. He
swore his false soul into perdition.
She wanted love, this woman. Was not her love for George Selby deeper
than any other woman's could be? Had she not a right to him? Did he
not belong to her by virtue of her overmastering passion? His wife--she
was not his wife, except by the law. She could not be. Even with the
law she could have no right to stand between two souls that were one.
It was an infamous condition in society that George should be tied to
her.
Laura thought this, believed it; because she desired to believe it. She
came to it as an original propositions founded an the requirements of her
own nature. She may have heard, doubtless she had, similar theories that
were prevalent at that day, theories of the tyranny of marriage and of
the freedom of marriage. She had even heard women lecturers say, that
marriage should only continue so long as it pleased either party to it
408
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