“Good!” she exclaimed, hardly knowing what she meant by repeating the word.
“After that you have no right to set yourself up to judge what may be best for my happiness. They who know how to judge are all united. Whatever you may have been, they believe that it will be good for me that you should now be my wife. After that you must talk about me no longer, unless you will talk of my wishes.”
“Do you think I am not anxious for your happiness?”
“I do not know;—but I shall find out in time. That is what I have to say about myself. And as to you, is it not much the same? I know you love me. Whatever the feeling was that overcame you as to that other man—it has gone. I cannot now stop to be tender and soft in my words. The thing to be said is too serious to me. And every friend you have wants you to marry the man you love and to put an end to the desolation which you have brought on yourself. There is not one among us all, Fletchers and Whartons, whose comfort does not more or less depend on your sacrificing the luxury of your own woe.”
“Luxury!”
“Yes; luxury. No man ever had a right to say more positively to a woman that it was her duty to marry him, than I have to you. And I do say it. I say it on behalf of all of us, that it is your duty. I won’t talk of my own love now, because you know it. You cannot doubt it. I won’t even talk of yours, because I am sure of it. But I say that it is your duty to give up drowning us all in tears, burying us in desolation. You are one of us, and should do as all of us wish you. If, indeed, you could not love me it would be different. There! I have said what I’ve got to say. You are crying, and I will not take your answer now. I will come to you again tomorrow, and then you shall answer me. But, remember when you do so that the happiness of many people depends on what you say.” Then he left her very suddenly and hurried back to the house by himself.
He had been very rough with her—had not once attempted to touch her hand or even her arm, had spoken no soft word to her, speaking of his own love as a thing too certain to need further words; and he had declared himself to be so assured of her love that there was no favour for him now to ask, nothing for which he was bound to pray as a lover. All that was past. He had simply declared it to be her duty to marry him, and had told her so with much sternness. He had walked fast, compelling her to accompany him, had frowned at her, and had more than once stamped his foot upon the ground. During the whole interview she had been so near to weeping that she could hardly speak. Once or twice she had almost thought him to be cruel;—but he had forced her to acknowledge to herself that all that he had said was true and unanswerable. Had he pressed her for an answer at the moment she would not have known in what words to couch a refusal. And yet as she made her way alone back to the house she assured herself that she would have refused.
He had given her four-and-twenty hours, and at the end of that time she would be bound to give him her answer—an answer which must then be final. And as she said this to herself she found that she was admitting a doubt. She hardly knew how not to doubt, knowing, as she did, that all whom she loved were on one side, while on the other was nothing but the stubbornness of her own convictions. But still the conviction was left to her. Over and over again she declared to herself that it was not fit, meaning thereby to assure herself that a higher duty even than that which she owed to her friends, demanded from her that she should be true to her convictions. She met him that day at dinner, but he hardly spoke to her. They sat together in the same room during the evening, but she hardly once heard his voice. It seemed to her that he avoided even looking at her. When they separated for the night he parted from her almost as though they had been strangers. Surely he was angry with her because she was stubborn—thought evil of her because she would not do as others wished her! She lay awake during the long night thinking of it all. If it might be so! Oh;—if it might be so! If it might be done without utter ruin to her own self-respect as a woman!
In the morning she was down early—not having anything to say, with no clear purpose as yet before her—but still with a feeling that perhaps that morning might alter all things for her. He was the latest of the party, not coming in for prayers as did all the others, but taking his seat when the others had half finished their breakfast. As he sat down he gave a general half-uttered greeting to them all, but spoke no special word to any of them. It chanced that his seat was next to hers, but to her
