In hesitating, plaintive voice, Esther said:
"Mr. Langdon, I greatly appreciate your sentiments toward me, and feel much interest in your future. No light consideration would influence me in such an important decision. I have no words to tell you how it pains me to decline such an honorable proposal. I too will always have tender recollections of your stay at Northfield. My life will be devoted to alleviating the sorrows of the poor and wretched. This vow was taken before you came to Northfield, and I must not break it, though the trial be indeed very hard. My life as your wife would be against the plain dictates of duty and a breach of covenant with Heaven."
Completely stunned, Oswald felt the decisive solemnity of Esther's words, but could find no fitting reply. He had too much respect for her good opinion, even though she crush his fondest hopes, to argue against the grounds of her decision. There was something so intangible, yet solemnly real, in this decisive consecration to holy ends that Oswald experienced a sense of bewilderment and awe, rendering nerveless his imperious will.
Following some further explanations by Esther for her fixed resolve, they had returned and joined their friends without more than a few words.
Having retired to his room, Oswald pondered long and bitterly over the unwelcome revelations of the day. Esther had told him that for a long time she had been thinking of her chosen life-work, but was fully decided in this resolve by the solemn words of a minister spoken while she was at London. Oswald had no censure for this high-principled, conscientious girl's infatuation, but indignantly railed against her spiritual advisers. These promoters of high ethical philosophy were safe from undue force of their own appeals, though more susceptible hearts might be crushed through conscientious compliance. It maddened Oswald that this lovely girl, with all her perfections of mind, face, and form, should be cast, like a common worm, into the great, vulgar, carnivorous mouth of human want. If Christ's ultimate aim were alleviation of physical suffering, why not feed and heal all earth's hungry, diseased millions, through diviner, broad-gauged philanthropy than lagging processes of personal devotion?
Oswald recalled the hateful, cruel, bigoted zeal of a Calchas, pressing upon Agamemnon at Aulis the unappeased wrath of the gods, until to fill the canvas of Grecian fleet for Troy sail this so-called "King of Men" could yield his household's idol to butcher-blade of human sacrifice.
Could it be that the courteous, indulgent Sir Donald Randolph, with his wealth of cultured, intellectual power, was such a cruel, heartless, moral idealist as to approve of his daughter's immolation on this slow-torturing funeral pyre?
Then, too, Esther's infatuation for such dreary life! Esther seemed to think the infinite plans would fail without her coöperation. Diana's intervention saved the weeping, trembling Iphigenia, but how find available substitute or Tauris asylum for deluded Esther Randolph?
Thus chafing against the day's revelations, Oswald continued, until wearied he relaxed from such tense state into uneasy sleep.
Paul Lanier's quickened sense of personal humiliation struggled with the promptings of overpowering craft. At times his vindictive malice planned revengeful surprises for the man who was in some way responsible for Paul's treatment. True, Paul saw little in Oswald's conduct toward Alice evincing any absorbing interest, and could detect that Esther was the attraction; but had not this fascinating Englishman come between him and the girl of his choice? With set lips he recalled each slight received at Northfield, and meditated sure revenge. "The time is short," he mutters, "and I must not long temporize upon methods, but there must be cautious anticipation of all the consequences."