"I have dared to hope much—everything—from your consent to become my companion for this afternoon. Before I ventured to address you directly, I had a long and frank conversation with your father."
"What did he say?" asked Sarah, turning towards him for the first time.
"He referred me to you for my answer, which, he said, must be final and positive, since he would never attempt to influence your choice. In the event of an affirmative reply from you, he promised that his sanction should not be withheld."
Sarah was silent. She comprehended fully her father's warm interest in his friend's suit, which the speaker was too diffident to imply, and how this expression of his wishes set the seal upon her fate.
"We are poor and proud! Mr. Hammond is rich and seeks to marry me!" was her bitter thought. "It is a fine bargain in the eyes of both my parents. It would be high treason for me to dispute their will. Mr. Hammond has conceived the notion that I am a useful domestic character, a good housekeeper and nurse, and he is willing to bid liberally for my services. It is all arranged between them! Mine is a passive part, to copy Lucy's sweet, submissive ways for a season, for fear of frightening away the game, afterwards to attend to my business, while he looks after his. I have chosen my lot, and I will abide by it!"
"Have I your permission to call this evening and inform your father of my success—may I say of our engagement?" asked Lewis.
"It is best, I suppose, to call things by their right names," replied Sarah, in a cold voice, that was to him only coy. He smiled, and was about to speak, when she resumed: "Since we are virtually engaged"—she caught her breath as she brought out the word—"I see no reason why we should hesitate to announce it to those whose right it is to know it."
"Thank you! That was spoken like the noble, unaffected woman you are! Will you always be equally sincere with me—Sarah?" His accent trembled with excess of emotion in calling the name.
Is it, then, an easy lot that you have chosen, Sarah Hunt? You, whose pride and glory it was to be truthful, who spurned whatever assimilated in the least degree to deception, what think you of a life where a lie meets you on the threshold and must be accepted and perpetuated if you would preserve your name and position in his eyes and those of the world. "It is the way two-thirds of the married people live!" you were saying to yourself, just now. It may be so; but it is none the less a career of duplicity, perjury—crime!
"I will endeavor to please you!" she faltered, her face in a flame of shame and confusion.