"His own wish?" she repeated.
"Yes! some time ago he told me of this; he said the one great thing he longed for was to see you and me—you and me, my own Charlotte—husband and wife before he died."
"Why did he keep his state of health as a secret from me?"
"I begged of him to tell you, but he wanted you to be his own bright Charlotte to the end."
Then Hinton told her of that first interview he had with her father. He told it well, but she hardly listened. Must she tell him the truth after all? No! she would not. During her father's lifetime she would shield him at any cost. Afterwards, ah! afterwards all the world would know.
When Hinton had ceased speaking, she laid her hand on his arm. "Nevertheless, my darling, I cannot marry next week. I know you will fail to understand me. I know my father will fail to understand me. That is hard—the hardest part, but I am doing right. Some day you will acknowledge that. With my father dying I cannot stand up in white and call myself a bride. My marriage-day was to have been the entrance into Paradise to me. With a funeral so near, and so certain, it cannot be that. John—John—I—cannot—I cannot. We must not marry next week."
"You put it off, then? You deny your dying father his dearest wish? That is not like you, Charlotte."
"No, it is unlike me. Everything, always, again, will be unlike me. If you put it so, I deny my father his dearest wish."
"Charlotte, I fail to understand you. You will not marry during your father's lifetime. But it may be very quiet—very—very quiet, I can manage that; and you need not leave him, you can still be altogether his daughter, and yet make him happy by letting him feel that you are also my wife; that I have the right to shield you, the right to love and comfort you. Come, Charlotte! come, my darling! we won't have any outward festivity, any outward rejoicing. This is but natural, this can be managed, and yet we may have that which is above and beyond it all—one another. We may be one in our sorrow instead of our joy."
"Oh! if it could be," she sobbed; and now again she laid her head on his shoulder.