“Oh, yes, yes! Did I not promise that on the blessed day when my dear father placed my hand in yours in solemn betrothal?”
“You will cleave to me, to me only, forever and ever, through good report and through evil report?”
“As my soul lives, I will!” fervently exclaimed the Lutheran minister’s daughter, uttering the rashest vow that was ever spoken by trusting lips.
She did not even add the saving clause: “In all cases not inconsistent with my duty.” She did not dream of doing so. Her pledge to her lover was unconditional because her faith in him was unbounded.
Nor was hers the mere blind faith of a loving heart. It seemed to be justifiable, for Colonel Eastworth was a man highly honored by the world, both for his private character and his public services. How could she ever imagine that he would call upon her to forsake her father and her country?
Yet this he was about to do. This was the test to which he meant to put her devoted love. And now he believed that the time was ripe for the disclosure of his plans. Now he felt assured that she was truly and unreservedly his own—so bound to him, body and soul, that she was not only ready to suffer with him, but willing to sin for him, if he should wish her to do so.
“Erminie,” he said, looking down into her loving, trustful, fervent face, “Erminie, you have pledged your faith to me by a very solemn oath—‘As my soul lives.’”
“Yes! And I repeat it. ‘As my soul lives!’ And if there could be an oath more solemn and binding than that, without being profane, I would pledge you my faith by it!”
“Erminie,” he stooped and whispered, “you are already almost my wife!”
“Oh, yes; I consider myself so. With us, you know, betrothal is as sacred as marriage,” she murmured.