The young girl was very pale, but there was a mild firmness in her eye that revealed all the pure strength that sustained her. She paused, drew a deep breath, and while her father stood gazing upon her, dumb with astonishment, she added:
“I will never marry any man but Mr. Whitney, for while he lives I can never love another.”
And now that it was over, Myra began to tremble; for there was something terrible in the fierce and pallid rage that held her father for a time mute and motionless before her. At length his lips parted, and his eyes flashed.
“Whitney! the ingrate, the impostor, you love!—you would marry him against my consent?”
“No, I will never marry any man against your consent, papa,” replied Myra, bursting into tears; for her strength had been taxed to the utmost, and she was not one to brave a parent’s wrath unmoved. “I can remain single, and will, if you desire it; but with the feelings that I have for Mr. Whitney, it would be a sin should I give one thought to another.”
Mr. D. gazed on the pale, earnest face of his child as she spoke, but there was no relenting in his face. Anger, scorn, a thousand wrathful passions broke through its pallor, and he answered in a voice of cutting scorn:
“And this man, you told me, had never breathed a word of love to you in his life.”
Myra was about to acknowledge the letters that had passed between Whitney and herself, for there was a seeming justice in the proud man’s taunt that cut her to the heart; but she thought of her mother, of the self-sacrificing mother who had so generously risked the displeasure of her husband in sanctioning the letters her child had received, and she only answered, “I can never love another, papa.”
Mr. D. turned away, and began to pace the room. His lips were pressed forcibly together, and uncontrollable passion seemed burning in every vein of his body.
“Thank God!” he muttered, turning furiously upon the terrified girl—“Thank God, no drop of my blood runs in your veins.”