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Page 316
dishonest and ill-trained, seeking to do as little and steal as much as they could, each blaming another for every evil. Moreover, the conditions would be difficult to amend, since every attempt at correction would be taken as a new sign of oppression.
They were already standing a little apart. Sybelle looked into Walter's troubled face. ''My parents are not such dragons," she said lightly, "but if you are so proper and prudish, I will not tease you."
"I love you," he said, with such intensity, although his voice was low, that tears came to Sybelle's eyes. "I would not for any prize on earth, nor for the hope of heaven, do anything that might hurt you. I fear this lust we have for each other, not that the desire in itself is wrong but that our easy yielding to the temptation, when we both know it will be soon enough that we can join with the blessing of God, will bring some trouble that will cause you grief."
That statement worried Sybelle even more. In Clyro, Walter had made a jest about the cancellation of his sinsone the spilling of his seed "abroad" and the other, which he had not committed, fornication. It was clear he had not been troubled by the results of their "lust" at that time, aside from the practical consideration of wishing her to remain a maiden. But plainly between then and now something had happened, and it must have been in Abergavennyand if it happened in Abergavenny, it must have something to do with Marie.
Nasty bitch, Sybelle thought, she must have caught Walter alone and said something or threatened something that had put this nonsense into his head. Doubtless since she and Walter would marry only when there was peace, or at least a truce, between Richard and the king, Marie could expect to be at their wedding because Richard would certainly be invited. Could Marie have threatened to throw a shadow on their marriage by contesting it or saying at the morning ceremony that the blood on the sheets was not Sybelle's?
Whatever poisonous growth Marie had planted, Sybelle was determined to weed it out, but this was not the time. Let the memory fade a little.
"Love between a promised man and wife cannot cause griefunless you mean the grief of parting or loss." Sybelle smiled. "But I cannot wish to avoid that, except by the joy of

 
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