She was not surprised that he did not let her pause until they reached the deep window—where she had not sat, for months, until that morning after the doctor left her. She had not expected a violent outbreak of anger or recrimination; had felt that, even in becoming her accuser, he could not cease to be a gentleman.
Orrin had told her, more than once or thrice, that his kinsman was just to calm severity. He would grant her a chance of self-exculpation; would judge her out of her own mouth; make her rehearse to him the story of her falsehood upon the spot where she had plighted her vow of eternal constancy. And she would meet it all—say it all, save the name of her tempter—that she was pledged not to reveal—if he would but let her go back the sooner to her father—the father who was dying upstairs!
"Don't think me cruel, dear, or ungenerous," began Roy, when he had seated her, and himself at her side.
Had her wretchedness moved him to leniency?
He continued: "But this is no season for useless delays and mistaken reserve. Our dear father is passing away from us. I met the doctor on my way to you this evening. He thinks that he may leave us very, very soon. One moment, dearest, and you shall go to him"—for she had started up. "He has made a dying request of us—of you and me—the fulfilment of which depends upon you. I say nothing of the eager happiness with which I have given my consent to the proposal—only of the comfort you can shed upon his last moments by marrying me in his sight within the next hour."
"No! no! no!" She slid from her seat to her knees, and hid her face, crouching to the floor in horror and humiliation. "I cannot! It would be a sin! a fearful sin!"
Roy would have raised her, but she shrank away from him.
"Anything but that! Ask me anything but that!" she repeated.
"It is not I who ask it, dear. Our father has decided what shall be the time and place of our marriage. It is not selfish—much less is it sinful in us to yield to his wish—his last earthly desire. It has been his prayer from the commencement of his illness that he might live to join our hands; give you into my keeping before you should close his eyes. Surely, knowing this, we may not fear to repeat in his hearing the vows we made long ago in this, our betrothal nook."
The simple, sad sincerity of his appeal sounded like pitiless will in the ears of the distracted girl, but she could not gainsay his reasoning. The decision was then thrown upon her! Hers was the power to cast a ray of light upon the even-time of the life which had been to her a constant benefaction, or to cloud it with disappointment.