Why should he stand aside and let her go, for such a
shadow as that ceremony had been? The Champneys money? That meant
nothing weighed in the balance with his desire. He could give her as
much, and more, than she would forego. Mrs. Berkeley Hayden would
eclipse Mrs. Peter Champneys.
Deliberately, then, but delicately, after his fashion, Hayden set
himself to win Anne Champneys. He felt that his passion for her gave
him the right. He meant to make her happy. She could have her
marriage annulled. Then she would become Mrs. Berkeley Hayden. Even
the fact that he really knew very little about her did not trouble
him. He coveted her, and he meant to have her.
He read the young Italian's sonnets, which she had inspired, and
they made him thoughtful. He could readily understand the depths of
feeling such a woman could arouse. Had she no heart, as the Italian
lamented? He wondered. It came to him that she was, in truth,
detached, sufficient to herself, an ungregarious creature moving
solitarily in a mysterious world all her own.
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