(I doubt if she ever had.)
Phil was not, perhaps, as diligent a Biblical student as he might have been, but his researches in that direction came to his aid at this moment.
‘Oh, you know, Carrie, there is Scripture for that,’ he said, ‘about “leaving father and mother and cleaving to your wife”—that’s the rule for men, and I dare swear it holds good for women too.’
‘Do you think so? But I would not grieve my father for the world,’ hesitated Carrie.
Phil grew impatient, for time was racing on, the sun was high in the heavens now.
‘You must—you must; can you bear to think of never seeing me again? I’d sooner miss the sun out of the sky than you, Carrie.’
Carrie seemed to herself to be whirled round and round in the eddies of Phil’s passion; she could not gainsay him, and yet she trembled and held back.
‘Yes—ah, yes—I would go to the world’s end with you, Phil,’ she said, ‘if it were not for fear to grieve my father.’ She rose and paced up and down the bank in an agony of indecision, clasping her hands together and then flinging them out with a gesture of helpless bewilderment. Never in life before had Carrie been called upon to make a decision of any importance, and now the two strongest affections of her heart warred together for the victory.
Phil came and paced beside her, arguing, beseeching, coaxing her by turns—till she turned at last in despair and laid her hands in his.
‘I will come with you,’ she said.