A. M. Williamson

“ Had I been obliged to stand by and see her give herself to any other man than Carson Wildred, it seemed to me that the blow would have been more bearable. But with my almost unreasoning aversion for and distrust of him, the thought of a marriage between these two was like the sacrifice of fair virgins to the foul, blood-dripping jaws of the mythical Minotaur. ”

“ So far my life had been lived contentedly enough apart from the influence or love of women. What strange weakness of the soul had seized me that I should thus have yielded without a struggle to a single glance from a pair of violet eyes? ”

“ Some voice within me, which would not be stilled or brook contradiction, cried aloud that I might have won her love, that she might have been mine, that only some devilish tangle of circumstances had circumvented the fate which originally had meant that we two should be all in all to one another. ”