"There," cried Elsie, "that's all, so don't ever think about the thing again. What a fortunate creature you are! how happy we shall be, shan't we, dear?"
She attempted to throw her arms about Elizabeth in her demonstrative way, but the woman rose quickly, and avoided the caresses which would have stifled her.
"It is time to dress," she said; "I am going to my room."
She passed into her chamber with that dreary chill at heart, which, it seemed to her, would never leave it again! How could she endure that fearful pang of humiliation and self-abasement that wrung her soul, and would grow stronger with every proof of kindness that her husband could give?
No love—no heart to give her under all his goodness and attention. She kept repeating such words to herself—they would never cease to ring in her ears—there could be no pleasure so entrancing that they would not mar it by their whispers—no grief so deep that they would not torture her with the recollection that she was powerless to comfort or aid the man who had made her his wife.
But she must bear it all in silence; hers was one of those deep, reticent natures which could resolve on a painful thing and carry out her determination to the very end. She would weary him with no sign of affection.
The playful exactions of a young wife, which are so pleasant to a loving husband, must be carefully avoided. He must be allowed to endure her without revolt—not finding her much in his way.
That was the first thought upon which she settled, even while this earliest whirl of pain and tremble made her head dizzy and her heart sick.
She heard Elsie's voice ringing out in a gay song: she went mechanically on with her dressing, listening to that merry song in the midst of her bewildering thoughts with a dreary feeling of desolation.
If she could have sat down in the midst of her new life, and died without further trouble or pain—that became her one thought! If that man who was her husband, and his sister could enter the room and find her dead, they might feel regret for a time, but very soon even her memory would pass away from that old house, and out of their hearts, where she had so shallow a resting-place, and in the grave she might find quiet.