“Alice, you must not! Hear me! Listen to me! Do not turn away with that air of gentle self-respect, and wave me off! Don’t I know that your heart is breaking this moment—this moment, that your child is leaving you, and you are left desolate and exposed to danger! Desolate, wretched, in peril, though you would have her to believe otherwise? Oh, Alice, you may deceive the child of your bosom, but you will not deceive the boy who sat at your feet and loved you, and studied the mystery of the sorrow on your brow when you came home a bride, and everybody called you happy. I was not deceived then; I have not been deceived since. Oh, Alice, my love for Elsie, my love for you, my relation toward both, give me the right to feel, the right to speak and advise. Hear me: You must not remain here to meet the anger of your husband. Your life—your life will be endangered. Nay! do not lift your hand to stop my speech; hear my plan; hear me out—I will be very brief. Listen! You love Elsie and me. Go with us when we leave here. Go with us to our backwoods home. Our home will be humble, but full of peace and love, and the repose you so much need. We shall be poor, but you shall not feel it. Respectful and loving hands will wait on you all day long. You will be happy with us. Remain with us till the storm blows over. There need be—there would be—no exposure, no gossip, no scandal. To the neighbors who knew of our betrothal, our marriage and departure will seem perfectly natural, only rather unsocial because we did not give a wedding. And I can answer for the discretion and fidelity of Wilson. Your accompanying us, for a visit, will seem nothing unusual. General Garnet, if I mistake not, is too much a man of the world not to keep his own secret, and too much of a despot not to enforce silence upon his people, in regard to this matter. General Garnet will be very anxious to get you back before your visit is prolonged to a suspicious extent. And then, Alice, while you are safe with us, you can make your own conditions with him for your return. You can secure for yourself——” “Stop! Magnus, I do not wish to mar the harmony of this sad hour by one dissonant word or thought or feeling. But let me hear no more of this. Not one breath more, dearest Magnus. What! I leave my home! leave my husband, and remain away to make conditions with him! I, who unconditionally pledged myself to him ‘for better or worse’—I, who vowed love, honor and obedience to him ‘until death’! No Magnus. That marriage vow, in all its details, is not to be tampered with. It is not a question of happiness, or of peace, or of expedience, or of repose, or of affection, but simply of duty. No, Magnus. When I hastened to bestow my daughter upon you, it was for the reason that I believed you to be one toward whom it would be a happiness as well as duty to keep sacred, in all its minutiæ, that marriage vow.” “Alice, dearest Alice, your heart is very mournful, and, forgive me for saying it, very morbid.”