I had enthroned you so high, Aline,
so high, and yet no higher than your place. Could I, then, suffer
that you should be dragged down by ambition, could I suffer the
evil I detested to mate with the good I loved? What could have
come of it but your own damnation, as I told you that day at
Gavrillac? Because of that my detestation of him became a personal,
active thing. I resolved to save you at all costs from a fate so
horrible. Had you been able to tell me that you loved him it would
have been different. I should have hoped that in a union sanctified
by love you would have raised him to your own pure heights. But
that out of considerations of worldly advancement you should
lovelessly consent to mate with him... Oh, it was vile and hopeless.
And so I fought him - a rat fighting a lion - fought him relentlessly
until I saw that love had come to take in your heart the place of
ambition. Then I desisted."
"Until you saw that love had taken the place of ambition!" Tears
had been gathering in her eyes whilst he was speaking.
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