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I am happy. Wonderful flowers lie at my feet, flowers which have been plucked and flung aside: I will pick them all up again, all of them! I will gather them in my arms and steep myself in their scent! One by one, I will tend them till they lift their heads again, I will blend them cunningly; and, when I have bound the fair sheaf, fate may do its worst!
It is no longer a question of the sanity or insanity of my experiment, or my wisdom or unwisdom. There is a just action to be accomplished; and, this time, circumstances favour my plans. In her distress, in her horror of her present life, all the possibilities of deliverance might have offered themselves to the girl: she would not have seen them, she would even have fled from them instinctively, timid as an animal too long confined. To save her, therefore, chance must take to itself a substance and a name. Can I not be that chance?
She suffers; I will give her joy. She is tormented; I will give her peace again. She knows not liberty; through me she will know its rapture. Once already she has been snatched from death, but, on that day, while they were carrying Rose to the presbytery, her long, golden tresses wept along the wayside. But I will carry her where she pleases. She shall be free and happy; and her hair shall laugh around her face. It shall help me to light her destiny, for beauty is a beacon for benighted hearts. Many will try to steer their course towards my Roseline. It will be easy for her to choose her happiness.
True, I am aware how perilous and uncertain is my experiment. Will it be possible to efface the evil impress left on that mind and body? How much of her early grace, her early vigour shall we find? What will have become of all the forces that, at seventeen, should still be frail as promises, tender as the little green shoots of a first spring-day?
But no matter? The impulse is irresistible and nothing can stay me now. Have no misgivings, Rose: hand in hand we will go through peril and suspense. Embrace the hope which I offer you: I will bring it to pass. Let nothing astonish you: all that is happening between us to-day is natural. You will go hence because it is right that you should go; and you will go of your own free will. It is not so much my heart which will bring you comfort; it is rather your heart which will open. I shall find in you all the good that you will receive from me.