The Project Gutenberg EBook of To Love, by Margaret Peterson

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Title: To Love

Author: Margaret Peterson

Release Date: September 3, 2008 [EBook #26519]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's note

Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. Several
words were spelled in two different ways and not corrected; they
are listed at the end of this book. A few obvious typographical errors
have been corrected, and they are also listed at the end.

"_To Love_"

"_To love is the great amulet which makes
the world a garden._"

_R. L. STEVENSON_

"_TO LOVE_"

_By Margaret Peterson : Author of_

"_The Lure of the Little Drum," "Tony Bellew," etc._

_LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. :: :: 1917_

"TO LOVE"

CHAPTER I

"Oh, but the door that waits a friend
Swings open to the day.
There stood no warder at my gate
To bid love stand or stay."

"You don't believe in marriage, and I can't afford to marry"--Gilbert
Stanning laughed, but the sound was not very mirthful and his eyes, as
he glanced at his companion, were uneasy and not quite honest. "We are
the right sort of people to drift together, aren't we, Joan?" His hands
as he spoke were restless, fidgeting with a piece of string which he
tied and untied repeatedly.

Joan Rutherford sat very straight in her chair, her eyes looking out in
front of her. His words had called just the faintest tinge of colour to
her cheeks. It was not exactly a beautiful face, but it was above
everything else lovable and appealing. Joan was twenty-three, yet she
looked still a child; the lines of her face were all a little
indefinite, except the obstinacy of her chin and the frankness of her
eyes. Her one claim to beauty, indeed, lay in those eyes; wide,
innocent, unfathomable, sometimes green, sometimes brown flecked with
gold. They seemed to hint at tragedy, yet they were far more often
lau