"Listen," she said. "Do not be angry with me, but tell me one thing: Would you ask Suse Weaver to marry you, or Jenny Church, or Eliza Disney?"
"Why, Myron, they're married already," said he, in a maze.
"So am I," said Myron, throwing back her head so that her eyes met his, whilst the color flooded her face, giving it a dangerous and triumphant charm. "So am I. When he bade me be silent, he bade me be true. He swore that he would be. He explained to me how little the saying of marriage vows meant. He said it was the keeping of them that made the marriage. I have kept them. I believed his promise under the sky, whilst we were alone, was as true and binding as mine when I said I would be silent and do all he wished me to; and he taught me to see that in this twofold faith lay the real marriage, and not in words spoken before people. He told me the stars were truer witnesses than men. That heaven was nearer there, among the trees, than in the churches; and it did seem near—so near I almost entered in. I believed we were married as sacredly as though Mr. Prew had married us. Believing that, I gave myself to him. He has been false to his promise, but I will never be to mine. I thought myself married then. I will hold myself in marriage bonds until he comes—or death. For the rest, let him look to it!"
As she had spoken, Homer's face changed with her changing words, but the resignation of her last words inspired no calm in him; it woke instead a fierce resentment. He was to lose her. She was to continue to suffer the old ignominy; the village was still to have its victim—and all for a brute who had deliberately deluded and deserted her. Homer's next speech began with an impatient oath, but half stifled.
"Myron," he said, his tones so determined as to be almost harsh, "have you not realized yet how false his promises were? How wrong his persuasions? How utterly false and untrue all this fine talk about the 'stars as witnesses' and 'heaven being near' was? The stars are very convenient witnesses for curs of his stamp, being silent in face of any perjury. Do you not see the pit he prepared for you? Do you not fall, pierced by the stakes at the bottom? Do you not see that his promises are all lies? Can you not understand, then, that the rest of his twaddle was no better? Why will you continue to bind yourself with a wisp of straw? Your hands are free—give them to me!"
"I realize all—I see everything," she cried, "and feel—God! what have I not felt? But—oh, Homer, don't you see how it is? I could not kiss my child—I could not endure to see my own face as I bend over the well, if I thought of another man. Don't you see I would then be vile?"
"No, I don't," said Homer. "Marry me—you and the boy will have my name, and let me hear man or woman say one word against it!"
"I can't," she said.
"Marry me," he urged. "Let me take care of you. Let me show you what a man is. Let me give you a heart and a home. You are lonely, you will be lonely no more; defenseless, I will protect you; sad, I will make you happy; shamed, I will compel them to respect you. Myron"—he held out his arms—"marry me!"
Myron Holder had thought of this hour ever since the day of her grandmother's funeral. Her thoughts had all been of his pain. She had never realized how it might mean almost intolerable temptation to herself.