A Struggle for a Ring — page 354: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

350 “J CANNOT SIN FOR YOU!” CHAPTER LII. ‘¢¥ CANNOT SIN FOR you!”., ‘‘T always had a chivalrous idea of women,” continued Lord Carsdale; ‘‘I cannot understand the men who make little of them and speak against them. Ailie, I did not love you, but when I saw you weeping in such distress, frightened at your uncle, frightened at your parents, fright- ened at the world, at the darkness, at once my heart was touched with pity. I would have given anything to have helped you. Iwas but an ignorant, foolish, simple boy, and I said to myself that as my imprudence had brought you to the brink of something terrible, 1 must at any cost save you. The most honorable thing which occurred to ” he went on, amitn dignified simplicity, ‘‘was that I should marry you.” ‘¢T remember it all so well,” she replied: with a shudder that made her tremble. ‘“Then, you see, Ailie, when I decided that I was igno- rant and foolish, I never thought of the consequences; all } did think of was that you must be rescued from an un- pleasant situation; that afterward I must either greatly anger and distress my parents, or that I must keep my marriage secret, did not at the time occur to me; that I was not marrying for love, and that afterward I might possibly find some one to love, never occurred to me. Ailie, may God pardon my recklessness, but I believe honestly I married with far less thought than I should have given to the choosing of even a trifle like a riding- ~ GComichboo Ss.