第288章

'It had no such effect.Here I am, after it all, telling you as I used to tell you before.I have to look to you for my happiness.'

'You should be ashamed to confess it, Arthur.'

'Never;--not to you, nor to all the world.I know what it has been.I know you are not now as you were then.You have been his wife, and are now his widow.'

'That should be enough.'

'But, such as you are, my happiness is in your hands.If it were not so, do you think that all my family as well as yours would join in wishing that you may become my wife? There is nothing to conceal.When you married this man, you know what my mother thought of it, and what John thought of it, and his wife.They had wanted you to be my wife; and they want it now--because they are anxious for my happiness.And your father wishes it, and your brother wishes it,--because they trust me, and I think that I should be a good husband to you.'

'Good!' she exclaimed, hardly knowing what she meant by repeating the word.

'After that you have no right to set yourself 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 that I am not anxious for your happiness?'

'I do not know;--but I shall find out in time.That is what Ihave 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, 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 is 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.

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 have got to say.

You are crying, and I will not take your answer now.I will come again to-morrow, 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,--but 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 he 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 that moment she would have known in what words to couch a refusal.