"Cannot!" I cried. "Why?"
"Because it was her father's wish that she should marry Trewinion's heir, and she will do it, though she dies the next day."
"I do not understand."
"You know how much she has ever thought of her father. No one I ever saw loved a parent, or a parent's memory, as much as she loved her father's. And now, although she would have to sacrifice everything dear to her heart, she will be true to his wish."
"But I will not have it so. I will not call for the sacrifice."
"Then you are hindering her father's wish from being fulfilled, and you will still be keeping Ruth and Wilfred apart."
"But what can I do?"
My mother was silent.
Then I saw her meaning. My very existence was the great evil. I was Trewinion's heir, whom her father wished her to marry, and yet she hated the thought of it; while she could not marry the man she loved because of her father's will. Meanwhile she was suffering a terrible torture—and I was causing it.
I tried to look at the whole matter fairly and boldly. What were the alternatives? I was Roger Trewinion's eldest son, and if I allowed my father's and Mr. Morton's will to be carried out, I doomed my darling to a loathsome life—a living death, while, though I should attain the object most dear to me, I should live in hell, the hell of being with a woman who loved another man. If I refused to marry her, things would be nearly as bad. I should still be dooming her to misery; she would not marry my brother, I should never be free from the thought that I was keeping others from happiness, while the two houses of Trewinion and Morton would not be united.