The Count of Monte Cristo

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"If she objects to your marrying M. d'Epinay, she would be all the more
likely to listen to any other proposition."

"No, Maximilian, it is not suitors to which Madame de Villefort objects,
it is marriage itself."

"Marriage? If she dislikes that so much, why did she ever marry
herself?"

"You do not understand me, Maximilian. About a year ago, I talked of
retiring to a convent. Madame de Villefort, in spite of all the remarks
which she considered it her duty to make, secretly approved of the
proposition, my father consented to it at her instigation, and it was
only on account of my poor grandfather that I finally abandoned the
project. You can form no idea of the expression of that old man's eye
when he looks at me, the only person in the world whom he loves, and,
I had almost said, by whom he is beloved in return. When he learned my