Page:Glenarvon (Volume 2).djvu/254

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chuse to kindle. Avondale's peace—your honour, are in my hands. If I resign you, my heart will break in the struggle; but if I give way. . . ."

"Oh then," she cried, "then are we ruined for ever and for ever. Do not, even were I to consent, O! do not lead me to wrong. What shall ever remunerate us for the loss of self-approbation? He smiled bitterly. "It is," he said, "a possession, I never yet cared greatly to retain." "And is self-approbation the greatest of all earthly enjoyments? Is man so independent, so solitary a being, that the consciousness of right will suffice to him, when all around brand him with iniquity, and suspect him of guilt?" He paused, and laughed. "Let us be that which we are thought," he cried, in a more animated tone. "The worst is thought; and that worst we will become. Let us live on earth but for each other: another country will hide us from the censures of the prejudiced; and