They had drifted quite close.

Joan could not help overhearing.
"It always seemed to me immoral, the marriage ceremony," the Human Document was explaining.

She was a thin, sallow woman, with an untidy head and restless eyes that seemed to be always seeking something to look at and never finding it.

"How can we pledge the future?
To bind oneself to live with a man when perhaps we have ceased to care for him; it's hideous." Miss Tolley murmured agreement.
"Our love was beautiful," continued the Human Document, eager, apparently, to relate her experience for the common good; "just because it was a free gift.

We were not fettered to one another.