"_To-morrow?_ Yes, I know. But have you ever reflected what a long way off to-morrow is? and how little we need to dread the coming of to-morrow, if we look well after to-day? And, my dear Mell, how many things occur to-night ere to-morrow ever comes! That's another thing you have not thought about. In your plans for marrying Rube to-morrow, you have neglected to take into consideration"--the rest he whispered into her ear, so low, so low she could scarcely catch it, but the sudden crash of brazen instruments, the sharp clash of steel, a thunderbolt at her very feet could not have made her start so violently or convulsed her with such terror--"_the fact that you are going to marry me to-night!_" With a gesture of instinctive repugnance, with a look of supplicating horror, she pushed him away. "Only devils tempt like that!" "No devil ever yet tempted a woman to right-doing." "It could not be right to treat Rube so." "It is the only way to right a wrong already done him." "No. I am going to make that wrong up to Rube. I have sworn to do it! I am going to stick by Rube through thick and thin. You go away! What did you come here for? Dark is the fate of the woman who breaks her plighted vows." "Darker still the fate of the woman who seals false vows. Such are untrue to the high instincts of the immortal within them." "But think how infamous! how base such an act! how scandalous! I cannot do it!" "Yet, you will do worse--far worse. A loveless marriage is worse than a broken vow. Such a marriage may pass current for legal tender in the courts of the world, but when some day, you come to square up accounts, you will find fraudulent bonds and unholy speculation in married estate the worst investment a foolish woman ever made. Dishonesty never pays, but it pays less in a marriage without love than anywhere else. And where's the use of trying to deceive Rube and the rest of the world, when God knows? You can't very well hoodwink _Him_, Mell. And how will you be able to endure it; to be clothed in marvellously fine garments and ride in a chariot, and envy the beggars as you pass them in their honest rags; to be a Jonas in every kiss, a Machiavelli in every word, a crocodile in every tear; Janus-faced on one side, and mealy-mouthed on the other; to be a fraud, a sham, a make-believe, an organized humbug, and a painted sepulchre? That's the picture of the woman who marries one man and loves another. Is it a pleasant picture, Mell? You will chafe behind the gilded bars, and champ the jewelled bit. You will feel the sickening thraldom of a cankering memory, a rankling regret, a sullen remorse, a longing after your true self, with every breath a lie, every act a counterfeit, every word a mincing of the truth. God only knows how you will bear it!" God only--she did not. Her head drooped lower in unspeakable bitterness and humiliation. Amid all the darkness she could see but one ray of light. "But if I do my duty--" began Mell.