“Hush! you're telling everybody in the car, and THAT isn't necessary, at any rate. Now we won't argue any more until we get home. Then you can say your say; but”—with discouraging candor—“it won't change my decision a single mite. My mind is made up. A higher power than you or me has settled everything for us. We are going to Scarford to live, and we will go just as soon as we can get ready.”
And go they did. The captain fought a stubborn battle, surprisingly stubborn and protracted for him, but he surrendered at last. Serena drove him from one line of entrenchments after the other, and, at length, when she had him in the last ditch, where, argument and expostulation unavailing, he could only say, “No! no, I won't, I tell you!” over and over again, she used her most effective weapon, tears, and brought him to terms.
“You don't care,” she sobbed. “You don't care for me at all. All you care about is just yourself. You're willing to stay here in this awful place, you're willing to plod along just as you always have; and it doesn't make any difference about my wishes or my hopes, or anything. If you were like most husbands you'd be proud and glad to see me getting on in the world; you'd be glad to give me the chance to be somebody; you'd—”
“There! there! Serena, don't talk so. I'd do anything in this world to please you.”
“Hush! hush! I should think you'd be ashamed to say such things. I should think you'd be AFRAID to say them, afraid something would happen to you—you'd be struck down or something. Oh, well! I must be resigned, I suppose. I must give in, just as I always do. I must be satisfied to be miserable and—and—Oh, what shall I do? What SHALL I do?”
Sobs and more sobs, frantic clutchings at the sofa pillows and declarations that she had better die; it would be better for her and ever so much better for everyone else if she were dead. No one would care.
Poor Daniel, distressed and remorseful, vaguely conscious that he was right, but conscience stricken nevertheless, hoisted the white flag.
“Hush, hush, Serena!” he pleaded. “Land sakes, don't say such things—please don't. I'll do anything you want, of course I will. I'll go to Scarford, if you say so. I was just—”
“I don't ask you to go there forever. I never have asked that. I only ask you to go there and live a while and just see how we like it. That was all I asked, and you knew it. But you won't! you won't!”
“Why, yes I will, too. I'll go—go next week, if you say so. I—I just—”