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nydus/The New MachiavelliPublic
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CHAPTER THE THIRD ~~ THE BREAKING POINT

nail.

There was a long pause.

“I want her,” I said, “and I'm going to have her. I'm too tired for balancing the right or wrong of it any more. You can't separate them. I saw her yesterday.... She's—ill.... I'd take her now, if death were just outside the door waiting for us.”

“Torture?”

I thought. “Yes.”

“For her?”

“There isn't,” I said.

“If there was?”

I made no answer.

“It's blind Want. And there's nothing ever been put into you to stand against it. What are you going to do with the rest of your lives?”

“No end of things.”

“Nothing.”

“I don't believe you are right,” I said. “I believe we can save something—”

Britten shook his head. “Some scraps of salvage won't excuse you,” he said.

His indignation rose. “In the middle of life!” he said. “No man has a

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