'Yes, yes--or under your direction, or by your help in some way! Don't be horrified at me--you must bear with me whilst I implore it. Nothing short of cruelty would have driven me to this. I could have borne my doom in silence had I been left unmolested; but he tortures me, and I shall soon be in the grave if I cannot escape.' To his shocked inquiry how her husband tortured her, the Duchess said that it was by jealousy. 'He tries to wring admissions from me concerning you,' she said, 'and will not believe that I have not communicated with you since my engagement to him was settled by my father, and I was forced to agree to it.' The poor curate said that this was the heaviest news of all. 'He has not personally ill-used you?' he asked. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'What has he done?' She looked fearfully around, and said, sobbing: 'In trying to make me confess to what I have never done, he adopts plans I dare not describe for terrifying me into a weak state, so that I may own to anything! I resolved to write to you, as I had no other friend.' She added, with dreary irony, 'I thought I would give him some ground for his suspicion, so as not to disgrace his judgment.' 'Do you really mean, Emmeline,' he tremblingly inquired, 'that you--that you want to fly with me?' 'Can you think that I would act otherwise than in earnest at such a time as this?' He was silent for a minute or more. 'You must not go with me,' he said. 'Why?' 'It would be sin.' 'It _cannot_ be sin, for I have never wanted to commit sin in my life; and it isn't likely I would begin now, when I pray every day to die and be sent to Heaven out of my misery!' 'But it is wrong, Emmeline, all the same.' 'Is it wrong to run away from the fire that scorches you?' 'It would look wrong, at any rate, in this case.' 'Alwyn, Alwyn, take me, I beseech you!' she burst out. 'It is not right in general, I know, but it is such an exceptional instance, this. Why has such a severe strain been put upon me? I was doing no harm, injuring no one, helping many people, and expecting happiness; yet trouble came. Can it be that God holds me in derision? I had no supporter--I gave way; and now my life is a burden and a shame to me . . . Oh, if you only knew how much to me this request to you is--how my life is wrapped up in it, you could not deny me!' 'This is almost beyond endurance--Heaven support us,' he groaned. 'Emmy, you are the Duchess of Hamptonshire, the Duke of Hamptonshire's wife; you must not go with me!' 'And am I then refused?--Oh, am I refused?' she cried frantically. 'Alwyn, Alwyn, do you say it indeed to me?' 'Yes, I do, dear, tender heart! I do most sadly say it. You must not go. Forgive me, for there is no alternative but refusal. Though I die, though you die, we must not fly together. It is forbidden in God's law. Good-bye, for always and ever!' He tore himself away, hastened from the shrubbery, and vanished among the trees.