"Do not shrink and moan so. It was a holy union you sanctified that night. I have suffered, oh, how terribly, since, but never regretted it, never shall regret it even in my death-throes. "During three weeks after that ride through the forest when I returned to Boston a happy bride--for, spite of all, I was happy--we met in secret and arranged that he should follow me to England, and there, before the whole world, demand me of my father. We sailed. Hidden away in an inferior part of the vessel, he went with us, never appearing on deck till after night-fall and keeping his presence in the ship a secret from my father. "We reached England at last and went up to London, where my father threw me into a whirl of fashionable life, hoping thus to win my thoughts from the man who was my husband. I resisted: the pleasures of society were worse than nothing to me, and I thus once more incurred my father's anger. Samuel Parris, you know the man who was my husband, his pride of character, his indomitable integrity. Holding my father's objections trivial and insulting to his manhood, he had swept them aside in scorn: it was only for my sake that he consented to concealment for a single hour. When he saw that the result of this secrecy was my humiliation--that I was forced to act a falsehood before the world--he put every other thought aside and resolved to declare our marriage and endure its consequences as he best might. "I remember the morning well. My father was at home in our town residence, surrounded by all the pomp of state and subserviency of well-trained menials. The knowledge that my young husband had a painful duty to perform excited all that was courageous or noble in my nature, and I felt a certain sublime animation in the thought of standing by his side while he proclaimed me his lawful wife. I was young, and loved my husband so dearly that the disobedience of which we had both been guilty seemed trivial compared with the complete happiness of our union. Since then I have learned how fatally domestic rebellion may root itself into a human life. The day came. My father was in his library. Every thing had gone well with him since our return. He stood high at court, was a favorite in society, and all his projects of aggrandizement, some of them bearing upon my fate in life, seemed to promise a happy fulfilment. He did not dream of the impediment my marriage would cast in the way of his ambition. Up to that time he had no idea that William was in England, or that my liking for him had amounted to more than a passing folly. "Half an hour before the time appointed for our mutual declaration, my father sent for me. I found him in brilliant spirits and almost caressingly kind. He met me with unusual affection, kissed me with smiling lips, and proclaimed triumphantly that a noble suitor had just left him, and that it was my own fault if I did not become a duchess within the month.