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Allen, Grant, 1848-1899

"The Woman Who Did"

"
The father looked at him with the face he was wont to assume in
scanning the appearance of a confirmed monomaniac. "She will not
marry you," he answered slowly; "and you intend to go on living
with her in open concubinage! A lady of birth and position! Is
that your meaning?"
"Father," Alan cried despairingly, "Herminia would not consent to
live with me on any other terms. To her it would be disgraceful,
shameful, a sin, a reproach, a dereliction of principle. She
COULDN'T go back upon her whole past life. She lives for nothing
else but the emancipation of women."
"And you will aid and abet her in her folly?" the father asked,
looking up sharply at him. "You will persist in this evil course?
You will face the world and openly defy morality?"
"I will not counsel the woman I most love and admire to purchase
her own ease by proving false to her convictions," Alan answered
stoutly.
Dr. Merrick gazed at the watch on his table once more. Then he
rose and rang the bell. "Patient here?" he asked curtly. "Show
him in then at once.


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