'
'Exactly,' he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of
hers. 'To marry and part secretly, and live on as we are living
now; merely to put it out of anybody's power to force you away
from me, dearest.'
'Or you away from me, Stephen.'
'Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of
circumstance strong enough to make any woman in the world marry
against her will: no conceivable pressure, up to torture or
starvation, can make a woman once married to her lover anybody
else's wife.'
Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had
been held by both as an untenable hypothesis, wherewith simply to
beguile a miserable moment. During a pause which followed
Stephen's last remark, a fascinating perception, then an alluring
conviction, flashed along the brain of both. The perception was
that an immediate marriage COULD be contrived; the conviction that
such an act, in spite of its daring, its fathomless results, its
deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the life they must
lead under any other conditions.
The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude
of the conception he was cherishing. 'How strong we should feel,
Elfride! going on our separate courses as before, without the fear
of ultimate separation! O Elfride! think of it; think of it!'
It is certain that the young girl's love for Stephen received a
fanning from her father's opposition which made it blaze with a
dozen times the intensity it would have exhibited if left alone.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142