“Mr. Helmstedt, you do not mean this!” exclaimed the lady, rising excitedly from her seat.
“Not?—look, Marguerite!” he replied, rising, and following her to the window, where she stood with her large, mournful eyes now wildly glancing from the bright, glad waters without to the darkened room and the stern visaged man within. “Look, Marguerite! This island is a mile long, by a quarter of a mile wide—with many thousand acres, with deep, shady woods and pleasant springs and streams and breezy beaches—almost room, variety and pleasure enough for a home. Your house is, besides, comfortable, and your servants capable and attentive. I say your house and servants, for here you shall be a queen if you like——”
“A captive queen—less happy than a free scullion!”
“A captive by your own contumacy, lady. And, mark me, I have shown you the limit of your range—this island—attempt to pass it and your freedom of motion, now bounded only by the sea, shall be contracted within the walls of this house, and so the space shall narrow around you, Marguerite, until——”
“Six feet by two will suffice me!”
“Aye! until then, if need be!”
“Mr. Helmstedt, you cannot mean this—you are a gentleman!”
“Or was; but never a fool, or a tool, lady! God knows—Satan knows how strongly and exclusively I have loved—still love! but you have placed me in a false and humiliating position, where I must take care of your honor and mine as best I may. You cannot imagine that I can permit you to fly off, year after year, whither, with whom, to whom, for what purpose I know not, and you refuse to tell! You left me no other alternative, Marguerite but to repudiate——”
“Oh! no, no! sweet Heaven, not that! You love me, Philip Helmstedt! I know you do. You could kill, but could not banish me! I could die, but could not leave you, Philip!” interrupted his wife, with an outbreak of agony that started cold drops of dew from her forehead.
“Compose yourself. I know that we are tied together (not so much by church and state as by something inherent in the souls of both) for weal or woe, blessing or cursing, heaven or hell—who can say? But assuredly tied together for time and for eternity!”