Alpha Book

Now Nina would be twenty-one on the first of the coming month, and
therefore would be free, as Anton told her, to do with herself as she
pleased. But still there came over her a cold feeling of fear when her
aunt spoke to her of the police. The law might give the police no power
over her; but was there not a power in the hands of those armed men
whom she saw around her on every side, and who were seldom countrymen
of her own, over and above the law? Were there not still dark dungeons
and steel locks and hard hearts? Though the law might justify her, how
would that serve her, if men--if men and women, were determined to
persecute her? As she walked home, however, she resolved that dark
dungeons and steel locks and hard hearts might do their worst against
her. She had set her will upon one thing in this world, and from
that one thing no persecution should drive her. They might kill her,
perhaps. Yes, they might kill her; and then there would be an end of
it. But to that end she would force them to come before she would
yield.


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