‘But I could not live without you,’ said simple Carrie, unaware that the formula had been used before; it seemed quite an original argument to her.
‘Nor I without you, of course,’ cried Phil—quite as unoriginal, in spite of his quick wits (the poor and the rich in wits as in wealth meet together in some things), ‘and for that reason you won’t refuse me what I ask, Carrie—’tis the only plan—I’ve thought all the matter out, and unless you will do it, your father will be here to-night, and will carry you off to London, and you will never see my face again, as like as not.’
‘Well?’ asked Carrie dubiously.
‘You’ll run away with me, and marry me. ’Tis as easy as the alphabet if once we get to London.’
‘Oh, but my father,’ protested Carrie.
‘Well, it has come to this: you must choose betwixt him and me; he will never allow you to marry me if he knows.’
‘But ’tis so sudden, Phil!—if I had even a day to consider the matter.’
‘You have scarce an hour,’ said Phil; ‘by now your father has that letter, by another hour, if I mistake not, he will be on his way here; by the evening he will have arrived. You must come with me now, now, now—or——’
The unspoken alternative of separation struck coldly on Carrie’s ear. Yet another love, older, steadier, plucked at her heart—she was torn between the two.
‘Ah, Phil,’ she cried, ‘I cannot leave you, and I cannot grieve my father. What am I to do? O what a sad thing trouble is—I have never known it before!’