For the time being she is, at all events, the supreme centre of interest amid her own immediate circle; her life teems with pleasure and expectation generally; a beautiful halo is around the most commonplace of things; the present is enjoyable, the future entrancing, and she--the luckiest of women, surely?--dances along over her rose-strewn path, under her cloudless sky, happy in the conviction that smiles and eternal sunshine are to be her lot.
What if, after marriage, the sky is ofttimes clouded and the path of life grows stormy, and the smiles disappear in frowns--and we know that such a change does sometimes come over the spirit of the most beautiful of matrimonial dreams--what if some of the early illusions are mercilessly murdered?--there is always that pre-nuptial period to be looked back upon with fondness, if also with regret. She has snatched from fate at least one hour of supreme and unalloyed delight--there is true satisfaction in the thought. And happy is the mortal who enjoys even that much happiness in this troublous world. The years of the Moorish Caliph were sixty and more; his hours of perfect bliss--five!
Olive, had she been engaged to Mallow, would have enjoyed her supreme hour with all the zest of a naturally happy disposition. As it was, she was wretched in the extreme. She detested her affianced husband, and she knew how deep was her love for the man she would have had in his place. Tossed about like a shuttlecock by these extremes of feeling, she anticipated her wedding-day with dread--almost with terror. The loss of the money would have been of no account with her; it was the dying wish of her father that she felt she could not disregard, to say nothing of the hint of unknown evil which the sealed letter contained. Why her father should have expressed himself so strongly, and yet so vaguely, she could not conceive. She could only conclude that he had committed some error in his life for which she was to pay the penalty. Jephthah vowed rashly, and circumstances brought about the sacrifice of his daughter that he might not be forsworn. Likewise she was to suffer for her father's sake by contracting this loveless marriage. There were times when she was resolved to throw all to the winds, to let Fate do her worst, rather than suffer what was before her; but in the end her affection for her dead father prevailed, and she bent her will to the force of circumstance.
On the subject of such unqualified obedience, her friend Tui did not hesitate to express herself strongly, for she was an independent young lady with ideas the reverse of favourable to what she termed family slavery. That any parent should command or expect to receive blind and unquestioning obedience was not her way of thinking. She was, therefore, exceedingly wrathful at her friend's decision.
"When a human being arrives at years of sense, he has every right to shape his own life," said she, ex cathedra. "Our religion teaches us that every one has to answer for his own sins, therefore certainly he should choose his own wickednesses."
"You speak in the masculine sense, dear," rejoined Olive; "besides, I do not intend to commit any sin, that I am aware of."
"I speak for woman as well as for man, Olive; and if you marry a creature you don't care two straws about, you will be committing a sin, and a very great one."
"Oh, Tui, darling!"
"It's no use saying, 'Oh, Tui, darling,'" replied Miss Ostergaard, vehemently; "you know in your own heart that I am right. Do you or do you not love Laurence Mallow?"
"I do, with all my soul."