A Struggle for a Ring — page 359: what you’re looking at

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

“I CANNOT SIN FOR YOU?” 355 ‘‘If I refuse my consent, you will not even go through the preliminary of seeking advice—you will not ask about it?’ she said. ‘No. If, on thinking it over, Ailie, you decide against it, I will not—indeed I will not even mention it again.” ‘* But, as you said, Lord Carsdale, the happiness of your life and of Lady Ethel’s is at stake.” ‘*It is so,” he replied, sadly. She looked up at him with a certain grandeur of soul shining in her face, which did not escape him. ‘*T will try to think of it,” she said, ‘‘as though it were not my own case, but the case of some other girl— some very tender-hearted, loving girl in whom I take a great interest; I will think it all over. I wish—oh, my God, how I wish that I could die to free you !” ‘¢T do not wish it, Ailie,” he said. ‘‘To die would be so easy. Oh, my love! my love! have you thought of it? Have you thought well of it? We were legally married. Before the eyes of the great God I am your wife. Do you believe, Lord Cars- dale, that men have power to disunite us?” ‘‘T must believe what others do,” he replied. She came nearer to him, and laid her cold hand on his; it was so cold that he started from the contact. ‘‘Love, think well of it; if I had been a bad wife to you—if I had deceived you, shadowed the beautiful name you have given me—perhaps then men would have the power to say to both of us, ‘ You are free ;’ but before God, the only reason that you can give for leaving me is that you do not love me. Oh, think, my love, before you ask me to do that which is wrong. I would die for you—I cannot sin fér you; but if I must sin, my hus- — (roy payicel oxoKo) <3 co