“No doubt, Isobel; there always is trouble, at least where I am concerned; also one can’t be happy without paying. But what does it matter so long as we stick to each other? Soon we shall both be of age and can do what we like.”
“One always thinks that, Godfrey, and yet, somehow, one never can. Free will is a fraud in that sense as in every other.”
“I have something, as you know, enough with my pay to enable us to get on, even if you were disinherited, dear, though, of course, you could not live as you have been accustomed to do.”
“Oh! don’t talk to me of money,” she said impatiently, “though for the matter of that, I have something, too, a little that comes to me from my mother. Money won’t divide us, Godfrey.”
“Then what will, Isobel?”
“Nothing in the long run,” she answered with conviction, “not even death itself, since in a way we are one and part of each other and therefore cannot be separated for always, whatever happens for a while, as I am sure that something will happen which will make you leave me.”
“I swear that I will never leave you, I will die with you first,” he exclaimed, springing up.
“Such oaths have been made often and broken—before the dawn,” she answered, smiling and shaking her head.
“I swear that I will always love you,” he went on.
“Ah! now I believe you, dear!” she broke in again. “However badly you may behave, you will always love me because you must.”