She flushed crimson over face and neck, but had no word to reply.
“Drusilla, we must be married immediately,” he said, firmly, striking “while the iron was hot.”
“But—so soon after my poor mother’s death. To be made so happy, when I ought to be weeping for her,” faltered the girl.
“My darling, you shall weep for a year if you like, so that you weep in my arms, and give me a legal right to hold you there. Come, Drusilla! If our wedding were going to be a gay one, with fine dresses, and fine company and festivities, you might, indeed, object that it would be showing disrespect to your mother’s memory. But I propose that our wedding shall be a very very quiet one, as quiet as if it were solemnized at a death-bed. Come, what do you say to that?”
“Mr. Alexander, I know you would not lead me into the least departure from the duty I owe to the memory of my dear, lost mother. Decide for me, Mr. Alexander,” she said very sweetly.
“Then I will. But leave out the ‘Mr.,’ my darling. I do not like the formality of that word from your sweet lips. Shall I decide for you in all things, my pet?”
“In all things, yes. Whom have I in the world but you?” she said, lifting her dove-like eyes confidingly to his face.
“No one indeed—thank heaven!” exclaimed Alexander, with triumph in the thought of how entirely this delicate, helpless, dependent child lay in his power and at his mercy.
The thought should have awakened his magnanimity; but, unhappily, it only flattered his selfishness.
He did decide all things for her. He decided that their marriage should be a strictly secret one; and he gave her plausible reasons why it must be so; but she needed for this, no other reason than his will. He decided that the house in Richmond was too gloomy in its associations of insanity, illness, and death, for their habitation, and that they should go to Washington to spend the winter. And he arranged that he himself should go in advance to the capital city and secure a home; and that on the receipt of a certain letter which he should write, she should secretly leave the house and join him in Washington.