Married within three months! I wished Luke had lost his way, or Vliet had been more stubborn. What was my life worth to me, Anna being lost? But chained to a drunken ruffian! Better far, if I had been strangled last night. It could not be. It should not be. I know not how my outward bearing betrayed my feelings, but the doctor perceived something of them, for he went on-- "There is a little irregularity, almost impropriety, in what I am about to say, but there will be mutual advantage, perhaps. I am aware you admire my daughter, and imagine yourself in love with her. Stay: listen to me for a short time. Doubtless you would describe your feeling in stronger terms. We will say you love her. Consider, will you, please, how impossible it is that her father should entertain a proposal of marriage from you. Your inheritance of your father's estate depends on your father's pleasure, if I am rightly informed?" (Who had informed him? I asked myself, as I nodded.) "The estate is heavily burdened, or so I am told?" Again I nodded, and wondered. "But, supposing your prospects were as good as they appear to be bad, could I consent to my daughter's being buried in a half-savage region like this? Could I allow her, esteemed as an ornament of the most intellectual society of Europe, to become the despised associate of fat farmers' wives, to whom the sale of poultry and butter is the main business of life, and whose amusements are coarse and frivolous in the extreme? It would be an unheard of folly on my part, even if there were no precontracted arrangement for my daughter's settlement in life. But it so happens she is affianced to a gentleman of large fortune, who has shown the sincerity of his attachment by striking proofs" ("And particularly last night," I murmured to myself), "not the least being that he has forsaken agreeable scenes and companions to endure exile to be near the lady of his choice." I could hold my tongue no longer. "You have brought Mynherr Vliet into discussion, doctor, so you must pardon me for asking whether you believe any lady can love the drunken brute? And, if not----" "There is no need to treat the matter hypothetically," the doctor interrupted. "I can assure you my daughter has all the affection for Mynherr Vliet which her betrothed could reasonably look for. We are somewhat indelicate to touch on such a subject, but as I desire to clear away any delusion which may exist in your mind, I give you my word that any inclination toward yourself which you may have imagined, was nothing more than a passing sentiment. Young women of a certain turn of mind, nourished by poetry and the drama, are apt to entertain a transient fancy for a handsome young man, encountered in new scenes, especially when they are somewhat piqued by the supposed desertion of the accepted lover."